mattered if he, if they, if all the world called it wrong?
What--pitiless, logical question--was wrong? Why should to take in one
case be so called, and in another not? By whose word, and by what law
was a thing thus, and why was she to submit to it?

She faced the darkness, the lantern at her feet, her back against the
shelves, and asked herself the world-old question; and, like many
before her, found no answer, because logic, merciless solvent of faith
and hope and law, never answers its own riddles. Only, as she stood
there, there rose up before her mind's eye the face of Joost, with its
simple gravity, its earnest, trusting blue eyes. She saw it, and she
saw the humble dignity with which he had shown her his six bulbs. Not
as a proud possessor shows a treasure, rather as an adept shares some
secret of his faith or art; so had he placed them in her power, given
her a chance to so use this trust. She almost groaned aloud as she
recalled him, and recalled, sorely against her will, a horrible tale
she had once read, of a Brahmin who murdered a little child for her
worthless silver anklets. Joost was a veritable child to her,
powerless before her ability, trusting in her good faith, a child
indeed, even if he had not placed his secret in her grasp. And it was
he--this child--that she, with her superior strength, was going to
rob!

She shivered. Why was he not Rawson-Clew? Why could not he take better
care of himself and his possessions? She could have done it with a
light heart then; there would have been a semblance of fight in it;
but now--now it could not be done. Logic, the pitiless solvent, has no
action on those old long-transmitted instincts; it may argue with, but
it cannot destroy, those vague yearnings of the natural man towards
righteousness. Julia did not argue, she only obeyed; she did not know