the will of the Deity on the earth he created was only the will to do
evil--to give pain--to crush the creature made in His own image. What
else do we mean when we say under all horror and agony that befalls, 'It
is God's will--God's will be done.' Base unbeliever though I am, I could
not speak the words. Oh, she has something we have not. Her poor,
little misspent life has changed itself into a shining thing, though it
shines and glows only in this hideous place. She herself does not know
of its shining. But Drunken Bet would stagger up to her room and ask to
be told what she called her 'pantermine' stories. I have seen her there
sitting listening--listening with strange quiet on her and dull yearning
in her sodden eyes. So would other and worse women go to her, and I,
who had struggled with them, could see that she had reached some remote
longing in their beings which I had never touched. In time the seed
would have stirred to life--it is beginning to stir even now. During
the months since she came back to the court--though they have laughed at
her--both men and women have begun to see her as a creature weirdly set
apart. Most of them feel something like awe of her; they half believe
her prayers to be bewitchments, but they want them on their side. They
have never wanted mine. That I have known--KNOWN. She believes that
her Deity is in Apple Blossom Court--in the dire holes its people live
in, on the broken stairway, in every nook and awful cranny of it--a
great Glory we will not see--only waiting to be called and to answer. Do
_I_ believe it--do you--do any of those anointed of us who preach each
day so glibly 'God is EVERYWHERE'? Who is the one who believes? If
there were such a man he would go about as Moses did when 'He wist not
that his face shone.'"

They had gone out together and were standing in the fog in the court.
The curate removed his hat and passed his handkerchief over his damp
forehead, his breath coming and going almost sobbingly, his eyes staring