individual's own
action in setting the sequence of events in motion, as the planting of
seed in the early spring produced fair flowers in the summer--or the
bruising of a limb produced pain. And the motion must go on until the
price had been paid or the pleasure obtained. And, when long ago she had
heard Cheiron and John Derringham having abstruse arguments upon Chance,
she used silently to wonder how they could be so dull as not to
understand there was no such thing really as Chance--if people were only
enabled to see clearly enough. If they could only trace events in their
lives to their sources, they would find that they themselves had long
ago--even perhaps in some former existence--put in motion the currents
to draw the events to themselves. What could be called "chance" in the
matter was only another name for ignorance.

And, if people knew about these wonderful forces of nature, they could
connect themselves with only the good ones, and protect themselves from
the bad. Misfortune came through--figuratively--not knowing just where
to put the feet, and through not looking ahead to see what would be the
result of actions.

Only, above and beyond all these forces of nature and these currents of
cause and effect, there was still the great, eternal Source of all
things, who was able to dispel ignorance and to endow one individual
with the power to help another by his prayers and thoughts. This God
could hasten and bring Happiness, if only He were believed in with
absolute faith. But that He would ever stoop to punish was an unheard-of
blasphemy. He was only and entirely concerned with good. Punishments
came as the results of actions. It followed then that John Derringham,
having paid the price of much sorrow for all his mistakes, would now
come into peace--and her prayers, and exceptional advantages in having
been allowed for years to learn the forces of nature, would be permitted
to help him. That he would be obliged to marry Mrs. Cricklander would
seem to be an overexaction, and not just. But they were not the judges,
and must in all cases fulfill their part of honesty and truth, no matter
what might betide.

These were her convictions, and so they caused her to feel only a
God-like calm--as she went away into the purple shadows of the old
streets.

Cheiron and she had been at San Gimignano for half a week, and almost
every child in the place knew and loved her. She had always a gracious
word or a merry smile wh