I could only just hear:

'I will tell you what is in it: in it is a lebellion which you think
good, but is not good. If a stleam will just flow, neither tlying to
climb upward, nor over-flowing its banks, but lunning modestly in its
fated channel just wherever it is led, then it will finally leach the
sea--the mighty ocean--and lose itself in fulness.'

'Ah,' said I, 'but that counsel is not new. It is what the philosophers
used to call "yielding to Destiny," and "following Nature." And Destiny
and Nature, I give you my word, often led mankind quite wrong--'

'Or _seemed_ to,' says she--'for a time: as when a stleam flows north a
little, and the sea is to the south: but it is bound for the sea all the
time, and will turn again. Destiny never could, and cannot yet, be
judged, for it is not finished: and our lace should follow blindly
whither it points, sure that thlough many curves it leads the world to
our God.'

'Our God indeed!' I cried, getting very excited: 'girl! you talk
speciously, but falsely! whence have you these thoughts in that head of
yours? Girl! you talk of "our race"! But there are only two of us left?
Are you talking _at_ me, Leda? Do not _I_ follow Destiny?'

'You?' she sighed, with down-bent face: 'ah, poor me!'

'What should I do if I followed it?' said I, with a crazy curiosity.

Her face hung lower, paler, in trouble: and she said:

'You would come now and sit near me here. You would not be there where
you are. You would be always and for ever near me....'

My good God! I felt my face redden.

'Oh, I could not _tell_ you...!' I cried: 'you talk the most disastrous...!
you lack all responsibility...! Never, never...!'

Her face now was covered with her left hand, her right on the tiller:
and bitingly she said, with a touch of venom:

'I could _make_ you come--_now_, if I chose: but I will not: I will wait
upon my God....'

'_Make_ me!' I cried: 'Leda! How make me?'

'I could cly before you, as I cly often and often ... in seclet ... for
my childlen....'

'_You_ cry in secret? This is news--'

'Yes, yes, I cly. Is not the burden of the world heavy upon me, too? and
the work I have to do _vely, vely_ gleat? And often and often I cly in
seclet, thinking of it: and I could cly now if I chose, for you love
your little girl so much, that you could not lesist me one minute....'

Now I saw the push and tortion and trembling of her poor little
under-lip, boding tears: and at once a flame