stion
to make, and that was characteristic.

"Why don't you tell Mr. Wilcox?"

"About Helen?"

"Perhaps he has come across that sort of thing."

"He would do all he could, but--"

"Oh, you know best. But he is practical."

It was the student's belief in experts. Margaret demurred for one or two
reasons. Presently Helen's answer came. She sent a telegram requesting
the address of the furniture, as she would now return at once. Margaret
replied, "Certainly not; meet me at the bankers' at four." She and Tibby
went up to London. Helen was not at the bankers', and they were refused
her address. Helen had passed into chaos.

Margaret put her arm round her brother. He was all that she had left,
and never had he seemed more unsubstantial.

"Tibby love, what next?"

He replied: "It is extraordinary."

"Dear, your judgment's often clearer than mine. Have you any notion
what's at the back?"

"None, unless it's something mental."

"Oh--that!" said Margaret. "Quite impossible." But the suggestion had
been uttered, and in a few minutes she took it up herself. Nothing else
explained. And London agreed with Tibby. The mask fell off the city, and
she saw it for what it really is--a caricature of infinity. The familiar
barriers, the streets along which she moved, the houses between which
she had made her little journeys for so many years, became negligible
suddenly. Helen seemed one with grimy trees and the traffic and the
slowly-flowing slabs of mud. She had accomplished a hideous act of
renunciation and returned to the One. Margaret's own faith held firm.
She knew the human soul will be merged, if it be merged at all, with the
stars and the sea. Yet she felt that her sister had been going amiss for
many years. It was symbolic the catastrophe should come now, on a London
afternoon, while rain fell slowly.

Henry was the only hope. Henry was definite. He might know of some paths
in the chaos that were hidden from them, and she determined to take
Tibby's advice and lay the whole matter in his hands. They must call at
his office. He could not well make it worse. She went for a few moments
into St. Paul's, whose dome stands out of the welter so bravely, as
if preaching the gospel of form. But within, St. Paul's is as its
surroundings--echoes and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible mosaics,
wet footmarks, crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum
requiris, circumspice; it points us back to London. There was no hope o