But Miss Taylor leapt to her feet with blazing cheeks.

"How dare you?" she screamed, beside herself.

"But God in heaven help you if you do," finished Miss Smith, calmly.




_Seventeen_

THE RAPE OF THE FLEECE


When slowly from the torpor of ether, one wakens to the misty sense of
eternal loss, and there comes the exquisite prick of pain, then one
feels in part the horror of the ache when Zora wakened to the world
again. The awakening was the work of days and weeks. At first in sheer
exhaustion, physical and mental, she lay and moaned. The sense of
loss--of utter loss--lay heavy upon her. Something of herself, something
dearer than self, was gone from her forever, and an infinite loneliness
and silence, as of endless years, settled on her soul. She wished
neither food nor words, only to be alone. Then gradually the pain of
injury stung her when the blood flowed fuller. As Miss Smith knelt
beside her one night to make her simple prayer Zora sat suddenly
upright, white-swathed, dishevelled, with fury in her midnight eyes.

"I want no prayers!" she cried, "I will not pray! He is no God of mine.
He isn't fair. He knows and won't tell. He takes advantage of us--He
works and fools us." All night Miss Smith heard mutterings of this