s his
own way; she remembered very plainly what he said but two nights
ago--right and wrong, honourable and dishonourable, wise and unwise,
they meant the same thing to different people, the choosing of the
higher, the leaving of the lower--and he believed no less of her. That
belief, surely, was a thing that fought on the side of the angels? And
then there was that other man, able, well-bred, intellectual, her
superior, who had treated her as an equal, and so tacitly demanded
that she should conform to his code of honour. And there was Johnny
Gillat, poor, old round-faced Johnny, who, under his silly, shabby
exterior, had somewhere, quite understood, the same code, and standard
of a gentleman, and never doubted but that she had it too--surely
these two, also, were on the side of the angels?

But it was not a matter of angels, neither was it a matter of this
man's thought, or that. At bottom, it seemed all questions could be
brought to plain terms--What do I think? I, alone in the big, black,
contradictory world. Julia realised it, and asked herself what it
mattered if he, if they, if all the world called it wrong?
What--pitiless, logical question--was wrong? Why should to take in one
case be so called, and in another not? By whose word, and by what law
was a thing thus, and why was she to submit to it?

She faced the darkness, the lantern at her feet, her back against the
shelves, and asked herself the world-old question; and, like many
before her, found no answer, because logic, merciless solvent of faith
and hope and law, never answers its own riddles. Only, as she stood
there, there rose up before her mind's eye the face of Joost, with its
simple gravity, its earnest, trusting blue eyes. She saw it, and she
saw the humble dignity with which he had shown her his six bulbs. Not
as a proud possessor shows a treasure, rather as an adept shares some
secret of his faith or art; so had he placed them in her power, given
her a chance to so use this trust. She almost groaned aloud as she
recalled him, and recalled, sorely against her will, a horrible tale
she had once read, of a Brahmin who murdered a little child for her
worthless silver anklets. Joost was a veritable child to her,
powerless before her ability, trusting in her good faith, a child
indeed, even if he had not placed his secret in her grasp. And it was
he--this child--that she, with her superior strength, was going to
rob!

She shivered. Why was he not Raws