n French:

"You suffer and cannot understand why, my dear boy. Nor do I, but
it is truth that all who are worth anything are called upon to
suffer, to what end we do not know. Nothing of value is gained
except by suffering. Why, again we do not know. This wretched
woman is right in a way when she refers all solutions to another
world, only her other world is one that is bad, and her
solutions are very base. Be sure that there are other and better
ones that we shall learn in due time, when this little sun has set
for us. For it will rise elsewhere, Godfrey, in a brighter sky.
Meanwhile, do not be frightened by her threats, for even if they
should all be true, to those evils which she prophesies there is,
be sure, another interpretation. As I think one of your poets has
said, we add our figures until they come even. So go your way and
keep as upright as you can, and have no fear since God is over
all, not the devil."

Thus preached the Pasteur, and what he said gave Godfrey the greatest
comfort. Still, being young, he made one mistake. He did send Madame
Riennes some money, partly out of pity--ten pounds in a postal order
without any covering letter, a folly that did not tend to a cessation
of her epistolatory efforts.

On reaching town Godfrey went straight to Hampstead. There to his
surprise he found all prepared for his reception.

"I was expecting you, my dear," said Mrs. Parsons, "and even have a
little bit extra in the house in case you should come."

"Why, when I told you I had gone home for a month?" asked Godfrey.

"Why? For the same reason as I knows that oil and vinegar won't abide
mixed in the same bottle. I was sure enough that being a man grown, you
and your father could never get on together in one house. But perhaps
there is something else in it too," she added doubtfully.

Then Godfrey told her that there was something else, and indeed all
about the business.

"Well, there you are, and there's nothing to be said, or at least so
much that it comes to the same thing," remarked Mrs. Parsons, in a
reflective tone, when he had finished his story. "But what I want to
know," she went on, "is why these kind of things happen. You two--I
mean you and Miss Isobel--are just fitted to each other, appointed
together by Nature, so to speak, and fond as a couple of doves upon a
perch. So why shouldn't you take each other and have done? What is
there to come between a young man and a