"Don't--you'll know soon why you mustn't. Oh, help me, for I am
unhappy!" She controlled a little upward ripple of her throat. "She,
the Guides say, is a great Light, but I am to be a greater. They sent
her to find me, and they directed her to keep me as she has--away from
the world. When she first told me that, I was terrified. She had to sit
beside me and hold my hand until I went to sleep. It's wonderful how
quickly I do sleep when Aunt Paula's with me--she's the most soothing
person in the world. If it weren't for her, I don't know what I'd do
when I get into my tired times."

"You're never going to have any more tired times, Light," he said.

She went on inflexibly, but he knew that she had heard:

"There was one thing which I did not understand, and neither perhaps
did Aunt Paula. The Guides sometimes seem foolish, but in the end
they're always wise; I suppose they waited until the time should come.
Though I tried to help it along, though I cried with impatience, I
couldn't begin to get voices. I've sat in dark rooms for hours, as Aunt
Paula wished me to do. I've felt many true things, but I could never
say honestly that I heard anything. But the Guides told Aunt Paula
'wait.' And at last she learned what was the matter.

"I don't know quite how to tell you this next. It came on the way back
from India. She had gone there--but perhaps you won't be interested to
know why she went. Though I was more than twenty, I'd never had what
you might call a flirtation. I'd been kept by the Guides away from
men--as I'd once been kept from other children. There was a young
Englishman on the steamer. And I liked him."