e she saw that it was then that she had passed from girlhood into
womanhood. The first chapter of her life was, at that moment's laying
of her hand on Martin's forehead, closed. The love for him that filled
her so utterly was in great part maternal. It was to be her destiny to
know the deep tranquil emotions of life rather than the passionate and
transient. She was perhaps the more blessed in that.

Even now, at the very instant of her triumph, she deceived herself in
nothing. There were many difficulties ahead for her. She had still to
deal with Paul: Martin was not a perfect character, nor would he
suddenly become one. Above all that strange sense of being a captive in
a world that did not understand her, some one curious and odd and
alien--that would not desert her. That also was true of Martin. It was
true--strangely true--of so many of the people she had known--of the
aunts, Uncle Mathew, Mr. Magnus, of Paul and of Grace, of Mr. Toms, and
even perhaps of Thurston and Amy Warlock--all captives in a strange
country, trying to find the escape, each in his or her own fashion,
back to the land of their birth.

But the land was there. Just as the lion, whose roar very faintly she
could hear through the thick walls, remembered in his cage the jungles
and mountains of his happiness, so was she aware of hers. The land was
there, the fight to get hack to it was real.

She smiled to herself, looking back on the years. Many people would
have said that she had had no very happy time since that sudden moment
of her father's death, but it did not seem to her, in retrospect,
unhappy. There had been unhappy times, tragic times, but life was
always bringing forward some magnificent moment, some sudden flash of
splendour that made up for all the rest. How could you be bitter about
people when you were all in the same box, all as ignorant, as blind, as
eager to do well, as fallible, as brave, as mistaken?

The thoughts slipped dimly through her mind. She was too happy to trace
them truly. She had never been one for conscious philosophy.

Nevertheless she did not doubt but that life was worth while, that
there was something immortal in her, and that the battle was good to
fight--but what it really came to was that she loved Martin, and that
at last some one needed her, that she need never be lonely any more.

Mrs. Bolitho stepped in with the tea.

"I'll take it in to him," Maggie said, standing up and stretching out
her arms for