thing? A poor woman
with nothing to live for walks the streets that she may live; a rich
woman with much to live for dies slowly and in great torture, of
cancer. If we accept the Great Design we shouldn't even feel pity for
these two women, we should say of them merely, 'How right! How
beautiful!' But we do feel pity for them, and by that mere feeling of
pity deny automatically the beauty of the Great Design, in the first
place, and its subsequent execution. I can conceive, I think, of a
lovely picture: you for instance, on a white bench, under a cedar in
the starlight, listening to my delightful conversation, but I couldn't
possibly draw the picture, let alone paint it. The Great Design, it
seems to me, had a tremendous gift for landscape, but fell down a
little when it came to people."

"Archie," said Evelyn, "you talk like an irreverent schoolboy."

"Of course I do," I said; "I must. I can't help myself. I am only
playing my part in the Great Design. But if you believe in that then
it is irreverent of you to say that my talk is anything but absolutely
right, just, and beautiful. So there!"

She said nothing. And after a few moments of silence I began to feel
sorry that I had talked flippantly.

"Evelyn," I said, "you mustn't mind poor old me."

Almost unconscious of what I was doing I lifted her right hand from her
lap, and held it in both mine. She made one feeble little effort to
tug her hand away and then no more. In the heavens, a star slipped,
and from the heavens fell, leaving a wake of golden glory. And it
seemed after that sudden blazing as if the night was blacker than
before.

I slid my left arm around her shoulders, and, unresisted, drew her a
little toward me, until I could feel her heart beating strongly against
mine.

Just then the latch of the house door turned with a strong oil click,
the door swung open, and dark against the light illumination of the
hall stood Lucy Fulton. As she stood looking and listening, the strong
bell of the far-off courthouse clock began to strike. Long before the
lights and last clanging concussion, Evelyn and I had withdrawn to the
uttermost ends of our bench.

Then Lucy turned and went back into the house and shut the door after
her.

Evelyn had risen.

"Good night," she said, but she did not hold out her hand.

"Good night," I said; "I've made you late. I'm sorry."

She started to speak, hesitated, and then said, very quietly, "Why did
yo