away; and I feel as
if we had never been anything real to each other! Uncle Titus, I
can't tell you _how_ I feel!"

Uncle Titus sat very still. His hat was in one hand, and both
together held his cane, planted on the floor between his feet. Over
hat and cane leaned his gray head, thoughtfully. If Desire could
have seen his eyes, she would have found in them an expression that
she had never supposed could be there at all.

She had not so much spoken _to_ Uncle Titus, in these last words of
hers, as she had irresistibly spoken _out_ that which was in her.
She wanted Uncle Titus's good common sense and sense of right to
help her decide; but the inward ache and doubt and want, out of
which grew her indecisions,--these showed themselves forth at that
moment simply because they must, with no expectation of a response
from him. It might have been a stone wall that she cried against;
she would have cried all the same.

Then it was over, and she was half ashamed, thinking it was of no
use, and he would not understand; perhaps that he would only set the
whole down to nerves and fidgets and contrariness, and give her no
common sense that she wanted, after all.

But Uncle Titus spoke, slowly; much as if he, too, were speaking out
involuntarily, without thought of his auditor. People do so speak,
when the deep things are stirred; they speak into the deep that
answereth unto itself,--the deep that reacheth through all souls,
and all living, whether souls feel into it and know of it or not.

"The real things are inside," he said. "The real world is the inside
world. _God_ is not up, nor down, but in the _midst_."

Then he looked up at Desire.

"What is real of your life is living inside you now. That is
something. Look at it and see what it is."

"Discontent. Misery. Failure."

"_Sense_ of failure. Well. Those are good things. The beginning of
better. Those are _live_ things, at any rate."

Desire had never thought of that.

Now _she_ sat still awhile.

Then she said,--"But we can't _be_ much, without doing it. I suppose
we are put into a world of outsides for something."

"Yes. To find out what it means. That's the inside of it. And to
help make the outside agree with the in, so that it will be easier
for other people to find out. That is the 'kingdom come and will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven.' Heaven is the inside,--the truth
of things."

"Why, I never knew"--began Desire, astonished. She had almost
fin