to plead with Mrs.
Stoddard; personally, she was hot and resentful at her unjust words.
Her reply to her hostess' greeting was brief and her attitude unbending.

"I have come to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard," Agatha began, though to her
chagrin, she found her voice was unsteady--"I have come personally to
ask you, Mrs. Stoddard, if you will help us in caring for our friend,
who is very ill. Your brother, Doctor Thayer, wishes it. It is a case
of life and death, maybe; and skilful nursing is difficult to find."

Agatha's hand, that rested on the table, was trembling by the time she
finished her speech; she was vividly conscious of the panic that had
come upon her nerves at a fresh realization of the wall of defense and
resistance which she was attempting to assail. It spoke to her from
Mrs. Stoddard's calm, other-worldly eyes, from her serene, deep voice.

"No, Miss Redmond, that work is not for me."

"But please, Mrs. Stoddard, will you not reconsider your decision? It
is not for myself I ask, but for another--one who is suffering."

Mrs. Stoddard's gaze went past Agatha and rested on the white cross
with the inscription, "Brother." She slowly shook her head, saying
again, "No, that work is not for me. The Lord does not call me there."

As the two women stood there, with the funeral cross between them, each
with her heart's burden of griefs, convictions and resentments, each
recoiled, sensitively, from the other's touch. But life and the burden
life imposes were too strong.

"How can yon say, Mrs. Stoddard, 'that work is not for me,' when there
is suffering you can relieve, sickness that you can cure? I am asking
a hard thing, I know; but we will help to make it as easy as possible
for you, and we are in great need."

"Should the servants of the Lord falter in doing His work?" Mrs.
Stoddard's voice intoned reverently, while she looked at Agatha with
her sincere eyes. "No. He gives strength to perform His commands.
But sickness and sorrow and death are on every hand; to some it is
appointed for a moment's trial, to others it is the wages of sin. We
can not alter the Lord's decrees."

Agatha stared at the rapt speaker with amazed eyes, and presently the
anger she had felt at Doctor Thayer's words rose again within her
breast, doubly strong. The doctor had given but a feeble version of
the judgment; here was the real voice hurling anathema, as did the
prophets of old. But even as she listened, she gathere