place to which we travelsome blessed explanation of your baby's pain
and your grief, which will fill with light the darkest heart. Now you
must believe without having seen; that is true faith. You must

"'Reach a hand through time to catch
The far-off interest of tears.'

That you may have strength so to do is part of your share in the
prayers of

"Yours very faithfully,

"W. D----."

A noble letter, but the storm was beating too fiercely to be stilled,
and one night in that summer of 1871 stands out clearly before me. Mr.
Besant was away, and there had been a fierce quarrel before he left. I
was outraged, desperate, with no door of escape from a life that,
losing its hope in God, had not yet learned to live for hope for man.
No door of escape? The thought came like a flash: "There is one!" And
before me there swung open, with lure of peace and of safety, the
gateway into silence and security, the gateway of the tomb. I was
standing by the drawing-room window, staring hopelessly at the evening
sky; with the thought came the remembrance that the means was at
hand--the chloroform that had soothed my baby's pain, and that I had
locked away upstairs. I ran up to my room, took out the bottle, and
carried it downstairs, standing again at the window in the summer
twilight, glad that the struggle was over and peace at hand. I uncorked
the bottle, and was raising it to my lips, when, as though the words
were spoken softly and clearly, I heard: "O coward, coward, who used to