s seemed to have gone even from Mrs. Twist's kindly face,
and the negative peace of three moneyless weeks to come brought no
healing. She felt that she would welcome strife.

One day she found it impossible to work; she felt fey, restless. She
wrote a letter to Dr. Angus but tore it up, dissatisfied. Taking down
the little grey book of the Edinburgh lectures, which she had not had
the heart to touch, she read the last one again. Into it she read
Kraill's voice, pictured his gesture, saw how his quick eyes would look
friendly, interested, arresting as he talked. On the last page was a
paragraph that someone had marked in pencil. In the margin was "J.R.K."
written faintly. She read the paragraph hungrily. Evidently he had meant
it as a message for her.

_"One of the greatest of human triumphs is to read the need in
another's eyes and be able to fulfil it. The difficulty lies in
comprehending the need. Most of us have rich storehouses, but to the
man who needs of us a crutch we give dancing shoes: to him who needs a
spur we offer wrappings of cotton-wool. ... We ask tolerance and sympathy
for our failings, patience for our inadequacies ... we give and get only
disappointment.... Partly this is because our needs are the things we
hide most jealously from each other, partly because we only see needs
subjectively ... this is the explanation of most of the sex muddles that
tangle life."_

As she read Kraill's message she thought again of her prayer for
weakness down by the lake. As she stood there, with all the lights of
her life burning dim, all the virtue gone out of her, it was forced upon
her that her prayer was being answered. She was getting weak! Never
before had she felt despairing about Louis; never before had she felt so
dull, so unable to help him, so unable to care that he should be helped.

As this thought came and held her, making her feel that something
stronger than herself had taken possession of her and was merely using
her as it would, she felt quietened. She had prayed for the blazing Feet
of God to walk along her life to Louis. Perhaps this dulness, this
weariness was their first pressure.

She turned to go out of the room and saw Kraill standing in the
sunlight. He looked tired.

"You've come back, then?" she said, and laughed suddenly at the futility
of her words. "It's a very long way for you to come."

"I went away for a whole month to think about it," he said in a low
voice. "And all I can thi