banish something--something from this room--something from my life to
which I cling. I think it is my faith in love--and loving. You may be
right, but yet--the consequences! the struggle, if we must resist! It is
best to submit. It is better not to know."

"It is easier to submit--yes; it is disagreeable to know," Evadne
translated.

There was another pause, then Mrs. Orton Beg broke out: "Don't make me
think about it. Surely I have suffered enough? Disagreeable to know! It is
torture. If I ever let myself dwell on the horrible depravity that goes on
unchecked, the depravity which you say we women license by ignoring it
when we should face and unmask it, I should go out of my mind. I do
know--we all know; how can we live and not know? But we don't think about
it--we can't--we daren't. See! I try always to keep my own mind in one
attitude, to keep it filled for ever with holy and beautiful thoughts.
When I am alone, I listen for the chime, and when I have repeated it to
myself slowly--

He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps--

my heart swells. I leave all that is inexplicable to Him, and thank him
for the love and the hope with which he feeds my heart and keeps it from
hardening. I thank him too," she went on hoarsely, "for the terrible
moments when I feel my loss afresh, those early morning moments, when the
bright sunshine and the beauty of all things only make my own barren life
look all the more bare in its loneliness; when my soul struggles to free
itself from the shackles of the flesh that it may spread its wings to meet
that other soul which made earth heaven for me here, and will, I know,
make all eternity ecstatic as a dream for me hereafter. It is good to