shall be one man in the world who knows the true god from the
false. Some woman shall be glad through my pain. Some day, when a woman
loves my Bobby, she shall be able to say: 'This is my beloved and this
is my _friend_!'"

Sue glanced quickly at her, but her expression was wholly unconscious.
She was not thinking of Amaldi in that moment. She was only thinking
that love to be real, to be perfect, to be lasting must include
friendship, comradeship, understanding, mutual endeavour. That to retain
its fulness it must give out to others besides the one, give
incessantly, untiringly, without stint, without grudging. That instead
of raising magic walls of enclosure, it should level all barriers.

She took another tone suddenly.

Colour came into her face. She looked with darkened eyes at her cousin.

"Sue...." she said. "The fact is that all these years I've been nothing
but a miserable happiness-hunter!"

"Nonsense!" said Miss Pickett.

"Just that ... a happiness-hunter," repeated Sophy.

"Well ... and what is everybody else doing but hunting happiness, I'd
like to know?" retorted her cousin. "Even the martyrs were after it! If
they hadn't found happiness in martyrdom they wouldn't have sought it,
you may be sure. Don't be morbid, child, for goodness' sake!"

"I'm not morbid. And what you say is true in a way. But there is selfish
happiness and unselfish happiness, and what I've wanted was the selfish
kind. I wanted love _all to myself_. What do I know of life really?...
What do I know of what's going on in the real world?... Oh, 'it is good
for me that I have been afflicted!' It is something, at least, that I
can say that from my soul--with all my might. It is good ... it is
_good_ for me.... I'm glad the Serpent has come into Eden.... I'm glad
that I've eaten of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil!... Now
I'm going out into the wilderness of life, and I'm going to learn how to
live. I'm just born, but I'm going to 'put aside childish things' ...
that toy called happiness, with all the rest!"

Miss Pickett gazed at the ardent face, with affection. Then she smiled
wisely.

"Perhaps, honey," she said, "you'll find happiness in doing without it.
At any rate--you seem right happy at the prospect of not being happy."

Sophy rose and, kneeling down beside her, leaned her head on that kind
breast.

"Do you know, Sue," she said dreamily, "after all, it's rather wonderful
to feel that one has done with love,