penetrated her
profound serenity. Her gift might have been trusted to dispose of them.

For before that moment the gift had worked indubitably; it had never
missed once. She looked back on its wonders; on the healing of herself;
the first healing of Rodney and Harding Powell; the healing of Bella. It
had worked with a peculiar rhythm of its own, and always in a strict, a
measurable proportion to the purity of her intention. To Harding's case
she had brought nothing but innocent love and clean compassion; to
Bella's nothing but a selfless and beneficent desire to help. And
because in Bella's case at least she had been flawless, out of the three
Bella's was the only cure that had lasted. It had most marvellously
endured. And because of the flaw in her she had left Harding worse than
she had found him. No wonder that poor Milly had reproached her.

It mattered nothing that Milly's reproaches went too far, that in
Milly's eyes she stood suspected of material sin (anything short of the
tangible had never been enough for Milly); it mattered nothing that
(though Milly mightn't believe it) she had sinned only in her thought;
for Agatha, who knew, that was enough; more than enough; it counted
more.

For thought went wider and deeper than any deed; it was of the very
order of the Powers intangible wherewith she had worked. Why, thoughts
unborn and shapeless, that ran under the threshold and hid there,
counted more in that world where It, the Unuttered, the Hidden and the
Secret, reigned.

She knew now that her surrender of last night had been the ultimate
deliverance. She was not afraid any more to meet Rodney; for she had
been made pure from desire; she was safeguarded forever.

He had been gone about an hour when she heard him at the gate again and
in the room below.

She went down to him. He came forward to meet her as she entered; he
closed the door behind them; but her eyes held them apart.

"Did you not get my wire?" she said.

"Yes. I got it."

"Then why ..."

"Why did I come? Because I knew what was happening. I wasn't going to
leave you here for Powell to terrify you out of your life."

"Surely--you thought they'd gone?"

"I knew they hadn't or you wouldn't have wired."

"But I would. I'd have wired in any case."

"To put me off?"

"To--put--you--off."

"Why?"

He questioned without divination or forewarning. The veil of flesh was
as yet over his eyes, so that he could not see.

"Because I didn'