respect; his mother, after her first misgivings, which were perhaps
sensations, thought as he did about it. She said the story dealt so
profoundly with the deepest things that it was no wonder a person,
standing like that girl between life and death, should wish to know how
the author solved its problem. Then she read the letter carefully over
again, and again Verrian read it, with an effect not different from that
which its first perusal had made with him. His faith in his work was so
great, so entire, that the notion of any other feeling about it was not
admissible.

"Of course," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction, "I must show the
letter to Armiger at once."

"Of course," his mother replied. "He is the editor, and you must not do
anything without his approval."

The faith in the writer of the letter, which was primary with him, was
secondary with her, but perhaps for that reason, she was all the more
firmly grounded in it.




II.

There was nothing to cloud the editor's judgment, when Verrian came to
him, except the fact that he was a poet as well as an editor. He read in
a silence as great as the author's the letter which Verrian submitted.
Then he remained pondering it for as long a space before he said, "That
is very touching."