Now everything became very clear to John Webster. He knew now what he wanted. The woman on the hill was one of the strange people, like the sailor who had come down to the ship, the old man in the road, the actress coming out of the stage door of the theatre, one of the people who had crowned themselves with the crown of life.

He stepped to his daughter and taking her hand opened it and laid the little stone on her palm. Then he carefully closed her fingers until her hand was a fist.

He smiled, a knowing little smile and looked into her eyes. "Well, now Jane, it's pretty hard to tell you what I'm thinking," he said. "You see, there are a lot of thoughts in me I can't get out without time and I'm going away. I want to give you something."

He hesitated. "This stone," he began again, "it's something for you to cling to perhaps, yes, that's it. In moments of doubt cling to it. When you become almost distracted and do not know what to do hold it in your hand."

He turned his head and his eyes seemed to be taking in the room slowly, carefully, as though not wanting to forget anything that made a part of the picture in which he and his daughter were now the central figures.

"As a matter of fact," he began again, "a woman, a beautiful woman might, you see, hold many jewels in her hand. She might have many loves you see and the jewels might be the jewels of experience, the challenges of life she had met, eh?"

John Webster seemed to be playing some fanciful game with his daughter, but now she was no longer frightened, as when she had first come into the room, or puzzled as she had been but a moment before. She was absorbed in what he was saying. The woman crouched on the floor behind her father was forgotten.

"There's one thing I shall have to do before I go away. I've got to give you a name for this little stone," he said, still smiling. Opening her hand again he took it out and went and stood for a moment holding it before one of the candles. Then he returned to her and again put it into her hand.

"It is from your father, but he is giving it to you at the moment when he is no longer being your father and has begun to love you as a woman. Well, I guess you'd better cling to it, Jane. You'll need it, God knows. If you want a name for it call it the Jewel of Life," he said and then, as though he had already forgotten the incident he put his hand on her arm and pushing her gently through the door closed it behind her.

IX

There still remained something for John Webster to do in the room. When his daughter had gone he picked up his bag and went out into the hallway as though about to leave without more words to the wife, who still sat on the floor with her head hanging down, as though unaware of any life about her.