wings.
Neither spoke for a while.  Later on, they talked about the coming
election.  If the Party got back, Phillips would go to the Board of
Trade.  It would afford him a better platform for the introduction of his
land scheme.

"What do you gather is the general opinion?" Joan asked.  "That he will
succeed?"

"The general opinion seems to be that his star is in the ascendant,"
Madge answered with a smile; "that all things are working together for
his good.  It's rather a useful atmosphere to have about one, that.  It
breeds friendship and support!"

Joan looked at her watch.  She had an article to finish.  Madge stood on
tiptoe and kissed her.

"Don't think me unsympathetic," she said.  "No one will rejoice more than
I shall if God sees fit to call you to good work.  But I can't help
letting fall my little tear of fellowship with the weeping."

"And mind your p's and q's," she added.  "You're in a difficult position.
And not all the eyes watching you are friendly."

Joan bore the germ of worry in her breast as she crossed the Gray's Inn
Garden.  It was a hard law, that of the world: knowing only winners and
losers.  Of course, the woman was to be pitied.  No one could feel more
sorry for her than Joan herself.  But what had Madge exactly meant by
those words: that she could "see her doing something really big," if she
thought it would help him?  There was no doubt about her affection for
him.  It was almost dog-like.  And the child, also!  There must be
something quite exceptional about him to have won the devotion of two
such opposite beings.  Especially Hilda.  It would be hard to imagine any
lengths to which Hilda's blind idolatry would not lead her.

She ran down twice to Folkestone during the following week.  Her visits
made her mind easier.  Mrs. Phillips seemed so placid, so contented.
There was no suggestion of suffering, either mental or physical.

She dined with the Greysons the Sunday after, and mooted the question of
the coming fight with Carleton.  Greyson thought Phillips would find
plenty of journalistic backing.  The concentration of the Press into the
hands of a few conscienceless schemers was threatening to reduce the
journalist to a mere hireling, and the better-class men were becoming
seriously alarmed.  He found in his desk the report of a speech made by a
well-known leader writer at a recent dinner of the Press Club.  The man
had risen to respond to the toast of his own health and had taken the
opportunity to unpack his heart.

"I am paid a thousand a year," so Greyson read to them, "for keeping my
own opinions out of my paper.  Some of you, perhaps, earn more, and
others less; but you're getting it for writing what you're told.  If I
were to be so foolish as to express my honest opinion, I'd be on the
street, the next morning, looking for another job."

"The business of the journalist," the man had continued, "is to destroy
the truth, to lie, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon,
to sell his soul for his daily bread.  We are the tools and vassals of
rich men behind the scenes.  We are the jumping-jacks.  They pull the
strings and we dance.  Our talents, our possibilities, our lives are the
property of other men."

"We tried to pretend it was only one of Jack's little jokes," explained
Greyson as he folded up the cutting; "but it wouldn't work.  It was too
near the truth."

"I don't see what you are going to do," commented Mary.  "So long as men
are not afraid to sell their souls, there will always be a Devil's market
for them."

Greyson did not so much mind there being a Devil's market, provided he
could be assured of an honest market alongside, so that a man could take
his choice.  What he feared was the Devil's steady encroachment, that
could only end by the closing of the independent market altogether.  His
remedy was the introduction of the American trust law, forbidding any one
man being interested in more than a limited number of journals.

"But what's the difference," demanded Joan, "between a man owning one
paper with a circulation of, say, six millions; or owning six with a
circulation of a million apiece?  By concentrating all his energies on
one, a man with Carleton's organizing genius might easily establish a
single journal that would cover the whole field."

"Just all the difference," answered Greyson, "between Pooh Bah as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Lord High Admiral, or Chief Executioner,
whichever he preferred to be, and Pooh Bah as all the Officers of State
rolled into one.  Pooh Bah may be a very able statesman, entitled to
exert his legitimate influence.  But, after all, his opinion is only the
opinion of one old gentleman, with possible prejudices and preconceived
convictions.  The Mikado--or the people, according to locality--would
like to hear the views of others of his ministers.  He finds that the
Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice and the Groom of the
Bedchamber and the Attorney-General--the whole entire Cabinet, in short,
are unanimously of the same opinion as Pooh Bah.  He doesn't know it's
only Pooh Bah speaking from different corners of the stage.  The
consensus of opinion convinces him.  One statesman, however eminent,
might err in judgment.  But half a score of statesmen, all of one mind!
One must accept their verdict."

Mary smiled.  "But why shouldn't the good newspaper proprietor hurry up
and become a multi-proprietor?" she suggested.  "Why don't you persuade
Lord Sutcliffe to buy up three or four papers, before they're all gone?"

"Because I don't want the Devil to get hold of him," answered Greyson.

"You've got to face this unalterable law," he continued.  "That power
derived from worldly sources can only be employed for worldly purposes.
The power conferred by popularity, by wealth, by that ability to make use
of other men that we term organization--sooner or later the man who
wields that power becomes the Devil's servant.  So long as Kingship was
merely a force struggling against anarchy, it was a holy weapon.  As it
grew in power so it degenerated into an instrument of tyranny.  The
Church, so long as it remained a scattered body of meek, lowly men, did
the Lord's work.  Enthroned at Rome, it thundered its edicts against
human thought.  The Press is in danger of following precisely the same
history.  When it wrote in fear of the pillory and of the jail, it fought
for Liberty.  Now it has become the Fourth Estate, it fawns--as Jack
Swinton said of it--at the feet of Mammon.  My Proprietor, good fellow,
allows me to cultivate my plot amid the wilderness for other purposes
than those of quick returns.  If he were to become a competitor with the
Carletons and the Bloomfields, he would have to look upon it as a
business proposition.  The Devil would take him up on to the high
mountain, and point out to him the kingdom of huge circulations and vast
profits, whispering to him: 'All this will I give thee, if thou wilt fall
down and worship me.'  I don't want the dear good fellow to be tempted."

"Is it impossible, then, to combine duty and success?" questioned Joan.

"The combination sometimes happens, by chance," admitted Greyson.  "But
it's dangerous to seek it.  It is so easy to persuade ourselves that it's
our duty to succeed."

"But we must succeed to be of use," urged Mary.  "Must God's servants
always remain powerless?"

"Powerless to rule.  Powerful only to serve," he answered.  "Powerful as
Christ was powerful; not as Caesar was powerful--powerful as those who
have suffered and have failed, leaders of forlorn hopes--powerful as
those who have struggled on, despised and vilified; not as those of whom
all men speak well--powerful as those who have fought lone battles and
have died, not knowing their own victory.  It is those that serve, not
those that rule, shall conquer."

Joan had never known him quite so serious.  Generally there was a touch
of irony in his talk, a suggestion of aloofness that had often irritated
her.

"I wish you would always be yourself, as you are now," she said, "and
never pose."

"Do I pose?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"That shows how far it has gone," she told him, "that you don't even know
it.  You pretend to be a philosopher.  But you're really a man."

He laughed.  "It isn't always a pose," he explained.  "It's some men's
way of saying: Thy will be done."

"Ask Phillips to come and see me," he said.  "I can be of more help, if I
know exactly his views."

He walked with her to the bus.  They passed a corner house that he had
more than once pointed out to her.  It had belonged, years ago, to a well-
known artist, who had worked out a wonderful scheme of decoration in the
drawing-room.  A board was up, announcing that the house was for sale.  A
gas lamp, exactly opposite, threw a flood of light upon the huge white
lettering.

Joan stopped.  "Why, it's the house you are always talking about," she
said.  "Are you thinking of taking it?"

"I did go over it," he answered.  "But it would be rather absurd for just
Mary and me."

She looked up Phillips at the House, and gave him Greyson's message.  He
had just returned from Folkestone, and was worried.

"She was so much better last week," he explained.  "But it never lasts."

"Poor old girl!" he added.  "I believe she'd have been happier if I'd
always remained plain Bob Phillips."

Joan had promised to go down on the Friday; but finding, on the Thursday
morning, that it would be difficult, decided to run down that afternoon
instead.  She thought at first of sending a wire.  But in Mrs. Phillips's
state of health, telegrams were perhaps to be avoided.  It could make no
difference.  The front door of the little house was standing half open.
She called down the kitchen stairs to the landlady, but received no
answer.  The woman had probably run out on some short errand.  She went
up the stairs softly.  The bedroom door, she knew, would be open.  Mrs.
Phillips had a feeling against being "shut off," as she called it.  She
meant to tap lightly and walk straight in, as usual.  But what she saw
through the opening caused her to pause.  Mrs. Phillips was sitting up in
bed with her box of cosmetics in front of her.  She was sensitive of
anyone seeing her make-up; and Joan, knowing this, drew back a step.  But
for some reason, she couldn't help watching.  Mrs. Phillips dipped a
brush into one of the compartments and then remained with it in her hand,
as if hesitating.  Suddenly she stuck out her tongue and passed the brush
over it.  At least, so it seemed to Joan.  It was only a side view of
Mrs. Phillips's face that she was obtaining, and she may have been
mistaken.  It might have been the lips.  The woman gave a little gasp and
sat still for a moment.  Then, putting away the brush, she closed the box
and slipped it under the pillow.

Joan felt her knees trembling.  A cold, creeping fear was taking
possession of her.  Why, she could not understand.  She must have been
mistaken.  People don't make-up their tongues.  It must have been the
lips.  And even if not--if the woman had licked the brush!  It was a
silly trick people do.  Perhaps she liked the taste.  She pulled herself
together and tapped at the door.

Mrs. Phillips gave a little start at seeing her; but was glad that she
had come.  Phillips had not been down for two days and she had been
feeling lonesome.  She persisted in talking more than Joan felt was good
for her.  She was feeling so much better, she explained.  Joan was
relieved when the nurse came back from her walk and insisted on her lying
down.  She dropped to sleep while Joan and the nurse were having their
tea.

Joan went back by the early train.  She met some people at the station
that she knew and travelled up with them.  That picture of Mrs.
Phillips's tongue just showing beyond the line of Mrs. Phillips's cheek
remained at the back of her mind; but it was not until she was alone in
her own rooms that she dared let her thoughts return to it.

The suggestion that was forcing itself into her brain was
monstrous--unthinkable.  That, never possessed of any surplus vitality,
and suffering from the added lassitude of illness, the woman should have
become indifferent--willing to let a life that to her was full of fears
and difficulties slip peacefully away from her, that was possible.  But
that she should exercise thought and ingenuity--that she should have
reasoned the thing out and deliberately laid her plans, calculating at
every point on their success; it was inconceivable.

Besides, what could have put the idea into her head?  It was laughable,
the presumption that she was a finished actress, capable of deceiving
everyone about her.  If she had had an inkling of the truth, Joan, with
every nerve on the alert, almost hoping for it, would have detected it.
She had talked with her alone the day before she had left England, and
the woman had been full of hopes and projects for the future.

That picture of Mrs. Phillips, propped up against the pillows, with her
make-up box upon her knees was still before her when she went to bed.  All
night long it haunted her: whether thinking or dreaming of it, she could
not tell.

Suddenly, she sat up with a stifled cry.  It seemed as if a flash of
light had been turned upon her, almost blinding her.

Hilda!  Why had she never thought of it?  The whole thing was so obvious.
"You ought not to think about yourself.  You ought to think only of him
and of his work.  Nothing else matters."  If she could say that to Joan,
what might she not have said to her mother who, so clearly, she divined
to be the incubus--the drag upon her father's career?  She could hear the
child's dry, passionate tones--could see Mrs. Phillips's flabby cheeks
grow white--the frightened, staring eyes.  Where her father was concerned
the child had neither conscience nor compassion.  She had waited her
time.  It was a few days after Hilda's return to school that Mrs.
Phillips had been first taken ill.

She flung herself from the bed and drew the blind.  A chill, grey light
penetrated the room.  It was a little before five.  She would go round to
Phillips, wake him up.  He must be told.

With her hat in her hands, she paused.  No.  That would not do.  Phillips
must never know.  They must keep the secret to themselves.  She would go
down and see the woman; reason with her, insist.  She went into the other
room.  It was lighter there.  The "A.B.C." was standing in its usual
place upon her desk.  There was a train to Folkestone at six-fifteen.  She
had plenty of time.  It would be wise to have a cup of tea and something
to eat.  There would be no sense in arriving there with a headache.  She
would want her brain clear.

It was half-past five when she sat down with her tea in front of her.  It
was only ten minutes' walk to Charing Cross--say a quarter of an hour.
She might pick up a cab.  She grew calmer as she ate and drank.  Her
reason seemed to be returning to her.  There was no such violent hurry.
Hadn't she better think things over, in the clear daylight?  The woman
had been ill now for nearly six weeks: a few hours--a day or two--could
make no difference.  It might alarm the poor creature, her unexpected
appearance at such an unusual hour--cause a relapse.  Suppose she had
been mistaken?  Hadn't she better make a few inquiries first--feel her
way?  One did harm more often than good, acting on impulse.  After all,
had she the right to interfere?  Oughtn't the thing to be thought over as
a whole?  Mightn't there be arguments, worth considering, against her
interference?  Her brain was too much in a whirl.  Hadn't she better wait
till she could collect and arrange her thoughts?

The silver clock upon her desk struck six.  It had been a gift from her
father when she was at Girton.  It never obtruded.  Its voice was a faint
musical chime that she need not hear unless she cared to listen.  She
turned and looked at it.  It seemed to be a little face looking back at
her out of its two round, blinkless eyes.  For the first time during all
the years that it had watched beside her, she heard its quick, impatient
tick.

She sat motionless, staring at it.  The problem, in some way, had
simplified itself into a contest between herself, demanding time to
think, and the little insistent clock, shouting to her to act upon blind
impulse.  If she could remain motionless for another five minutes, she
would have won.

The ticking of the little clock was filling the room.  The thing seemed
to have become alive--to be threatening to burst its heart.  But the
thin, delicate indicator moved on.

Suddenly its ticking ceased.  It had become again a piece of lifeless
mechanism.  The hands pointed to six minutes past.  Joan took off her hat
and laid it aside.

She must think the whole thing over quietly.




CHAPTER XIV


She could help him.  Without her, he would fail.  The woman herself saw
that, and wished it.  Why should she hesitate?  It was not as if she had
only herself to consider.  The fate--the happiness of millions was at
stake.  He looked to her for aid--for guidance.  It must have been
intended.  All roads had led to it.  Her going to the house.  She
remembered now, it was the first door at which she had knocked.  Her
footsteps had surely been directed.  Her meeting with Mrs. Phillips in
Madge's rooms; and that invitation to dinner, coinciding with that crisis
in his life.  It was she who had persuaded him to accept.  But for her he
would have doubted, wavered, let his opportunities slip by.  He had
confessed it to her.

And she had promised him.  He needed her.  The words she had spoken to
Madge, not dreaming then of their swift application.  They came back to
her.  "God has called me.  He girded His sword upon me."  What right had
she to leave it rusting in its scabbard, turning aside from the pathway
pointed out to her because of one weak, useless life, crouching in her
way.  It was not as if she were being asked to do evil herself that good
might come.  The decision had been taken out of her hands.  All she had
to do was to remain quiescent, not interfering, awaiting her orders.  Her
business was with her own part, not with another's.  To be willing to
sacrifice oneself: that was at the root of all service.  Sometimes it was
one's own duty, sometimes that of another.  Must one never go forward
because another steps out of one's way, voluntarily?  Besides, she might
have been mistaken.  That picture, ever before her, of the woman pausing
with the brush above her tongue--that little stilled gasp!  It may have
been but a phantasm, born of her own fevered imagination.  She clung to
that, desperately.

It was the task that had been entrusted to her.  How could he hope to
succeed without her.  With her, he would be all powerful--accomplish the
end for which he had been sent into the world.  Society counts for so
much in England.  What public man had ever won through without its
assistance.  As Greyson had said: it is the dinner-table that rules.  She
could win it over to his side.  That mission to Paris that she had
undertaken for Mrs. Denton, that had brought her into contact with
diplomatists, politicians, the leaders and the rulers, the bearers of
names known and honoured in history.  They had accepted her as one of
themselves.  She had influenced them, swayed them.  That afternoon at
Folk's studio, where all eyes had followed her, where famous men and
women had waited to attract her notice, had hung upon her words.  Even at
school, at college, she had always commanded willing homage.  As Greyson
had once told her, it was herself--her personality that was her greatest
asset.  Was it to be utterly wasted?  There were hundreds of impersonal,
sexless women, equipped for nothing else, with pens as keen if not keener
than hers.  That was not the talent with which she had been entrusted--for
which she would have to account.  It was her beauty, her power to charm,
to draw after her--to compel by the mere exercise of her will.  Hitherto
Beauty had been content to barter itself for mere coin of the realm--for
ease and luxury and pleasure.  She only asked to be allowed to spend it
in service.  As his wife, she could use it to fine ends.  By herself she
was helpless.  One must take the world as one finds it.  It gives the
unmated woman no opportunity to employ the special gifts with which God
has endowed her--except for evil.  As the wife of a rising statesman, she
could be a force for progress.  She could become another Madame Roland;
gather round her all that was best of English social life; give back to
it its lost position in the vanguard of thought.

She could strengthen him, give him courage.  Without her, he would always
remain the mere fighter, doubtful of himself.  The confidence, the
inspiration, necessary for leadership, she alone could bring to him.  Each
by themselves was incomplete.  Together, they would be the whole.  They
would build the city of their dreams.

She seemed to have become a wandering spirit rather than a living being.
She had no sense of time or place.  Once she had started, hearing herself
laugh.  She was seated at a table, and was talking.  And then she had
passed back into forgetfulness.  Now, from somewhere, she was gazing
downward.  Roofs, domes and towers lay stretched before her, emerging
from a sea of shadows.  She held out her arms towards them and the tears
came to her eyes.  The poor tired people were calling to her to join with
him to help them.  Should she fail them--turn deaf ears to the myriad
because of pity for one useless, feeble life?

She had been fashioned to be his helpmate, as surely as if she had been
made of the same bone.  Nature was at one with God.  Spirit and body both
yearned for him.  It was not position--power for herself that she craved.
The marriage market--if that had been her desire: it had always been open
to her.  She had the gold that buys these things.  Wealth, ambition: they
had been offered to her--spread out temptingly before her eyes.  They
were always within her means, if ever she chose to purchase them.  It was
this man alone to whom she had ever felt drawn--this man of the people,
with that suggestion about him of something primitive, untamed, causing
her always in his presence that faint, compelling thrill of fear, who
stirred her blood as none of the polished men of her own class had ever
done.  His kind, strong, ugly face: it moved beside her: its fearless,
tender eyes now pleading, now commanding.

He needed her.  She heard his passionate, low voice, as she had heard it
in the little garden above Meudon: "Because you won't be there; and
without you I can do nothing."  What right had this poor, worn-out shadow
to stand between them, to the end?  Had love and life no claims, but only
weakness?  She had taken all, had given nothing.  It was but reparation
she was making.  Why stop her?

She was alone in a maze of narrow, silent streets that ended always in a
high blank wall.  It seemed impossible to get away from this blank wall.
Whatever way she turned she was always coming back to it.

What was she to do?  Drag the woman back to life against her will--lead
her back to him to be a chain about his feet until the end?  Then leave
him to fight the battle alone?

And herself?  All her world had been watching and would know.  She had
counted her chickens before they were dead.  She had set her cap at the
man, reckoning him already widowed; and his wife had come to life and
snatched it from her head.  She could hear the laughter--the half amused,
half contemptuous pity for her "rotten bad luck."  She would be their
standing jest, till she was forgotten.

What would life leave to her?  A lonely lodging and a pot of ink that she
would come to hate the smell of.  She could never marry.  It would be but
her body that she could give to any other man.  Not even for the sake of
her dreams could she bring herself to that.  It might have been possible
before, but not now.  She could have won the victory over herself, but
for hope, that had kindled the smouldering embers of her passion into
flame.  What cunning devil had flung open this door, showing her all her
heart's desire, merely that she should be called upon to slam it to in
her own face?

A fierce anger blazed up in her brain.  Why should she listen?  Why had
reason been given to us if we were not to use it--weigh good and evil in
the balance and decide for ourselves where lay the nobler gain?  Were we
to be led hither and thither like blind children?  What was right--what
wrong, but what our own God-given judgment told us?  Was it wrong of the
woman to perform this act of self-renunciation, yielding up all things to
love?  No, it was great--heroic of her.  It would be her cross of
victory, her crown.

If the gift were noble, so also it could not be ignoble to accept it.

To reject it would be to dishonour it.

She would accept it.  The wonder of it should cast out her doubts and
fears.  She would seek to make herself worthy of it.  Consecrate it with
her steadfastness, her devotion.

She thought it ended.  But yet she sat there motionless.

What was plucking at her sleeve--still holding her?

Unknowing, she had entered a small garden.  It formed a passage between
two streets, and was left open day and night.  It was but a narrow strip
of rank grass and withered shrubs with an asphalte pathway widening to a
circle in the centre, where stood a gas lamp and two seats, facing one
another.

And suddenly it came to her that this was her Garden of Gethsemane; and a
dull laugh broke from her that she could not help.  It was such a
ridiculous apology for Gethsemane.  There was not a corner in which one
could possibly pray.  Only these two iron seats, one each side of the
gaunt gas lamp that glared down upon them.  Even the withered shrubs were
fenced off behind a railing.  A ragged figure sprawled upon the bench
opposite to her.  It snored gently, and its breath came laden with the
odour of cheap whisky.

But it was her Gethsemane: the best that Fate had been able to do for
her.  It was here that her choice would be made.  She felt that.

And there rose before her the vision of that other Garden of Gethsemane
with, below it, the soft lights of the city shining through the trees;
and above, clear against the starlit sky, the cold, dark cross.

It was only a little cross, hers, by comparison.  She could see that.
They seemed to be standing side by side.  But then she was only a
woman--little more than a girl.  And her courage was so small.  She
thought He ought to know that.  For her, it was quite a big cross.  She
wondered if He had been listening to all her arguments.  There was really
a good deal of sense in some of them.  Perhaps He would understand.  Not
all His prayer had come down to us.  He, too, had put up a fight for
life.  He, too, was young.  For Him, also, life must have seemed but just
beginning.  Perhaps He, too, had felt that His duty still lay among the
people--teaching, guiding, healing them.  To Him, too, life must have
been sweet with its noble work, its loving comradeship.  Even from Him
the words had to be wrung: "Thy will, not Mine, be done."

She whispered them at last.  Not bravely, at all.  Feebly, haltingly,
with a little sob: her forehead pressed against the cold iron seat, as if
that could help her.

She thought that even then God might reconsider it--see her point of
view.  Perhaps He would send her a sign.

The ragged figure on the bench opposite opened its eyes, stared at her;
then went to sleep again.  A prowling cat paused to rub itself against
her foot, but meeting no response, passed on.  Through an open window,
somewhere near, filtered the sound of a child's low whimpering.

It was daylight when she awoke.  She was cold and her limbs ached.  Slowly
her senses came back to her.  The seat opposite was vacant.  The gas lamp
showed but a faint blue point of flame.  Her dress was torn, her boots
soiled and muddy.  Strands of her hair had escaped from underneath her
hat.

She looked at her watch.  Fortunately it was still early.  She would be
able to let herself in before anyone was up.  It was but a little way.
She wondered, while rearranging her hair, what day it was.  She would
find out, when she got home, from the newspaper.

In the street she paused a moment and looked back through the railings.
It seemed even still more sordid in the daylight: the sooty grass and the
withered shrubs and the asphalte pathway strewn with dirty paper.  And
again a laugh she could not help broke from her.  Her Garden of
Gethsemane!

She sent a brief letter round to Phillips, and a telegram to the nurse,
preparing them for what she meant to do.  She had just time to pack a
small trunk and catch the morning train.  At Folkestone, she drove first
to a house where she herself had once lodged and fixed things to her
satisfaction.  The nurse was waiting for her in the downstairs room, and
opened the door to her.  She was opposed to Joan's interference.  But
Joan had come prepared for that.  "Let me have a talk with her," she
said.  "I think I've found out what it is that is causing all the
trouble."

The nurse shot her a swift glance.  "I'm glad of that," she said dryly.
She let Joan go upstairs.

Mrs. Phillips was asleep.  Joan seated herself beside the bed and waited.
She had not yet made herself up for the day and the dyed hair was hidden
beneath a white, close-fitting cap.  The pale, thin face with its closed
eyes looked strangely young.  Suddenly the thin hands clasped, and her
lips moved, as if she were praying in her sleep.  Perhaps she also was
dreaming of Gethsemane.  It must be quite a crowded garden, if only we
could see it.

After a while, her eyes opened.  Joan drew her chair nearer and slipped
her arm in under her, and their eyes met.

"You're not playing the game," whispered Joan, shaking her head.  "I only
promised on condition that you would try to get well."

The woman made no attempt to deny.  Something told her that Joan had
learned her secret.  She glanced towards the door.  Joan had closed it.

"Don't drag me back," she whispered.  "It's all finished."  She raised
herself up and put her arms about Joan's neck.  "It was hard at first,
and I hated you.  And then it came to me that this was what I had been
wanting to do, all my life--something to help him, that nobody else could
do.  Don't take it from me."

"I know," whispered Joan.  "I've been there, too.  I knew you were doing
it, though I didn't quite know how--till the other day.  I wouldn't
think.  I wanted to pretend that I didn't.  I know all you can say.  I've
been listening to it.  It was right of you to want to give it all up to
me for his sake.  But it would be wrong of me to take it.  I don't quite
see why.  I can't explain it.  But I mustn't.  So you see it would be no
good."

"But I'm so useless," pleaded the woman.

"I said that," answered Joan.  "I wanted to do it and I talked and
talked, so hard.  I said everything I could think of.  But that was the
only answer: I mustn't do it."

They remained for a while with their arms round one another.  It struck
Joan as curious, even at the time, that all feeling of superiority had
gone out of her.  They might have been two puzzled children that had met
one another on a path that neither knew.  But Joan was the stronger
character.

"I want you to give me up that box," she said, "and to come away with me
where I can be with you and take care of you until you are well."

Mrs. Phillips made yet another effort.  "Have you thought about him?" she
asked.

Joan answered with a faint smile.  "Oh, yes," she said.  "I didn't forget
that argument in case it hadn't occurred to the Lord."

"Perhaps," she added, "the helpmate theory was intended to apply only to
our bodies.  There was nothing said about our souls.  Perhaps God doesn't
have to work in pairs.  Perhaps we were meant to stand alone."

Mrs. Phillips's thin hands were playing nervously with the bed clothes.
There still seemed something that she had to say.  As if Joan hadn't
thought of everything.  Her eyes were fixed upon the narrow strip of
light between the window curtains.

"You don't think you could, dear," she whispered, "if I didn't do
anything wicked any more.  But just let things take their course."

"You see, dear," she went on, her face still turned away, "I thought it
all finished.  It will be hard for me to go back to him, knowing as I do
now that he doesn't want me.  I shall always feel that I am in his way.
And Hilda," she added after a pause, "she will hate me."

Joan looked at the white patient face and was silent.  What would be the
use of senseless contradiction.  The woman knew.  It would only seem an
added stab of mockery.  She knelt beside the bed, and took the thin hands
in hers.

"I think God must want you very badly," she said, "or He wouldn't have
laid so heavy a cross upon you.  You will come?"

The woman did not answer in words.  The big tears were rolling down her
cheeks.  There was no paint to mingle with and mar them.  She drew the
little metal box from under the pillow and gave it into Joan's hands.

Joan crept out softly from the room.

The nurse was standing by the window.  She turned sharply on Joan's
entrance.  Joan slipped the box into her hands.

The nurse raised the lid.  "What a fool I've been," she said.  "I never
thought of that."

She held out a large strong hand and gave Joan a longish grip.  "You're
right," she said, "we must get her out of this house at once.  Forgive
me."

Phillips had been called up north and wired that he would not be able to
get down till the Wednesday evening.  Joan met him at the station.

"She won't be expecting you, just yet," she explained.  "We might have a
little walk."

She waited till they had reached a quiet road leading to the hills.

"You will find her changed," she said.  "Mentally, I mean.  Though she
will try not to show it.  She was dying for your sake--to set you free.
Hilda seems to have had a talk with her and to have spared her no part of
the truth.  Her great love for you made the sacrifice possible and even
welcome.  It was the one gift she had in her hands.  She was giving it
gladly, proudly.  So far as she was concerned, it would have been kinder
to let her make an end of it.  But during the last few days I have come
to the conclusion there is a law within us that we may not argue with.
She is coming back to life, knowing you no longer want her, that she is
only in the way.  Perhaps you may be able to think of something to say or
do that will lessen her martyrdom.  I can't."

They had paused where a group of trees threw a blot of shadow across the
moonlit road.

"You mean she was killing herself?" he asked.

"Quite cleverly.  So as to avoid all danger of after discovery: that
might have hurt us," she answered.

They walked in silence, and coming to a road that led back into the town,
he turned down it.  She had the feeling she was following him without his
knowing it.  A cab was standing outside the gate of a house, having just
discharged its fare.  He seemed to have suddenly recollected her.

"Do you mind?" he said.  "We shall get there so much quicker."

"You go," she said.  "I'll stroll on quietly."

"You're sure?" he said.

"I would rather," she answered.

It struck her that he was relieved.  He gave the man the address,
speaking hurriedly, and jumped in.

She had gone on.  She heard the closing of the door behind her, and the
next moment the cab passed her.

She did not see him again that night.  They met in the morning at