The creature's soul had put no gloss upon her sin. She had sinned, and
her suffering was manifest.

She had chosen to stand up and take the scourge of God; after which the
stones cast by men are not painful.

By this I mean that she had voluntarily stripped her spirit bare of
evasion, and seen herself for what she was; pleading no excuse. His
scourge is the Truth, and she had faced it.

Innumerable fanciful thoughts, few of them definite, beset the mind at
interviews such as these; but Robert was distinctly impressed by her
look. It was as that of one upon the yonder shore. Though they stood
close together, he had the thought of their being separate--a gulf
between.

The colourlessness of her features helped to it, and the odd little
close-fitting white linen cap which she wore to conceal the
stubborn-twisting clipped curls of her shorn head, made her unlike women
of our world. She was dressed in black up to the throat. Her eyes were
still luminously blue, and she let them dwell on Robert one gentle
instant, giving him her hand humbly.

"Dahlia!--my dear sister, I wish I could say; but the luck's against me,"
Robert began.

She sat, with her fingers locked together in her lap, gazing forward on
the floor, her head a little sideways bent.

"I believe," he went on--"I haven't heard, but I believe Rhoda is well."