that way. Again love was not a thing of
right or wrong, it was the thing that had to have its way--life's great
imperative. Going down that old street made the glow of those days--the
excitement--come to life and quicken her again. It was so real that it
was as if she were living it again--a girl palpitating with love going
to meet her lover, all else left behind, only love now! For the moment
those old surroundings made the old days a living thing to her. The
world was just one palpitating beauty; the earth she walked was vibrant;
the sweetness of life breathed from the air she breathed. She was
charged with the joy of it, bathed in the wonder. Love had touched her
and taken her, and she was different and everything was different. Her
body was one consciousness of love; it lifted her up; it melted her to
tenderness. It made life joyous and noble. She lived; she loved!

Standing on the spot where they had many times stood in moments of
meeting a very real tenderness for that girl was in the heart of this
woman who had paid so terribly for the girl's love. It brought a feeling
that she had not paid too much, that no paying was ever too much for
love. Love made life; and in turn love was what life was for. To live
without it would be going through life without having been touched
alive. In that moment it seemed no wrong love could bring about would be
as deep as the wrong of denying love. There was again that old feeling
of rising to something higher in her than she had known was there, that
feeling of contact with all the beauty of the world, of being admitted
to the inner sweetness and wonder of life. She had a new understanding
of what she had felt; that was the thing added; that was the gift of the
hard years.

And of a sudden she wanted terribly to see her mother. It seemed if she
could see her mother now that she could make her understand. She saw it
more simply than she had seen it before. She wanted to tell her mother
that she loved because she could not help loving. She wanted to tell her
that after all those years of paying for it she saw that love as the
thing illumining her life; that if there was anything worthy in her,
anything to love, it was in just this--that she had fought for love,
that she would fight for it again. She wanted to see her mother! She
believed she could help the hurt she had dealt.

She had walked slowly on, climbing a little hill. From there she looked
back at the town. With fresh pain