understand, there is almost nothing I
wouldn't do to right that old wrong.'

'There's nothing to be done,' she said; and then, shrinking under that
look of almost cheerful benevolence, 'You can never give me back my
child.'

More than at the words, at the anguish in her face, his own had changed.

'Will that ghost give you no rest?' he said.

'Yes, oh, yes.' She was calm again. 'I see life is nobler than I knew.
There is work to do.'

On her way to the great folding doors, once again he stopped her.

'Why should you think that it's only you these ten years have taught
something to? Why not give even a man credit for a willingness to learn
something of life, and for being sorry--profoundly sorry--for the pain
his instruction has cost others? You seem to think I've taken it all
quite lightly. That's not fair. All my life, ever since you disappeared,
the thought of you has hurt. I would give anything I possess to know
you--were happy again.'

'Oh, happiness!'

'Why shouldn't you find it still?'

He said it with a significance that made her stare, and then?--

'I see! she couldn't help telling you about Allen Trent--Lady John
couldn't!'

He ignored the interpretation.

'You're one of the people the years have not taken from, but given more
to. You are more than ever----You haven't lost your beauty.'

'The gods saw it was so little effectual, it wasn't worth taking away.'

She stood staring out into the void. 'One woman's mishap--what is that?
A thing as trivial to the great world as it's sordid in most eyes. But
the time has come when a woman may look about her and say, What general
significance has my secret pain? Does it "join on" to anything? And I
find it _does_. I'm no longer simply a woman who has stumbled on the
way.' With difficulty she controlled the shake in her voice. 'I'm one
who has got up bruised and bleeding, wiped the dust from her hands and
the tears from her face--and said to herself not merely: Here's one
luckless woman! but--here is a stone of stumbling to many. Let's see if
it can't be moved out of other women's way. And she calls people to come
and help. No mortal man, let alone a woman, _by herself_, can move that
rock of offence. But,' she ended with a sudden sombre flare of
enthusiasm, 'if _many_ help, Geoffrey, the thing can be done.'

He looked down on her from his height with a wondering pity.

'Lord! how you care!' he said, while the mist deepened before his eyes.

'Don't be