s not
been proven in the house of flesh.

She had failed in spirituality. She had fixed the spiritual life away
from earth, beyond the ramparts. She saw that the spiritual life is here.

And more than this, she saw that in her husband's nature hidden deep down
under the perversities that bewildered and estranged her, there was a
sense of these things, of the sanctity of their life. She saw what they
might have made of it together; what she had actually made of it, and of
herself and him. She thought of his patience, his chivalry and
forbearance, and of his deep and tender love for her and for their child.

God had given him to her to love; and she had not loved him. God had
given her to him for his help and his protection; and she had not helped,
she had not protected him.

God had dealt justly with her. She had loved God; but God had rejected a
love that was owing to her husband. Looking back, she saw that she had
been nearest to God in the days when she had been nearest to her husband.
The days of her separation had been the days of her separation from God.
And she had not seen it.

All the love that was in her she had given to her child. Her child had
been born that she might see that the love which was given to her was
holy; and she had not seen it. So God had taken her child from her that
she might see.

And seeing that, she saw herself aright. That passion of motherhood was
not all the love that was in her. The love that was in her had sprung up,
full-grown, in a single night. And it had grown to the stature of the
diviner love she saw. And as she felt that great springing up of love,
with all its strong endurances and charities, she saw herself redeemed by
her husband's sin.

There she paused, trembling. It was a great and terrible mystery, that
the sin of his body should be the saving of her soul. And as she thought
of the price paid for her, she humbled herself once more in her shame.

She was no longer afraid that he would die. Something told her that he
would live, that he would be given back to her. She dared not think how.
He might be given back paralysed, helpless, and with a ruined mind. Her
punishment might be the continual reproach of his presence, her only
consolation the tending of the body she had tortured, humiliated, and
destroyed. She prayed God to be merciful and spare her that.

And on the morning of the fifth day Majendie woke from his terrible
sleep. He could see light. Towards eveni