pier than you were at Redford--young, and loved, and with
everything nice about you--?"

"Yes. Because then, although, of course, I did have everything, I had
no idea of the value of what I had. You can't be really happy unless
you know that you are happy. I did not know it then, but now I do."

Deb's glance flashed round the poor room, and out of the window into
the squalid street; she thought of Bob, who almost openly despised the
mother who adored him; she calculated the loneliness, the poverty,
the--to her--ugliness of the existence which Mary's "as I am" was
intended to describe; and she groaned aloud.

"Oh, my dear, was it really so awful as that--that the mere relief from
it can mean so much to you?"

"I am not going to complain," said Mary. "It was not awful by anybody's
fault--certainly not by his. He did his best; he was really good to me.
It could not have happened at all, except through his being good to
me--doing what he did that night. I am not in the least bitter against
him; he was as he was made just as I am. It had to be, I suppose. The
maker of the puppets didn't care whether we belonged or not; the hand
that pulled the strings, and tangled them, jerked us into the mire
together anyhow--" "Oh, don't!" pleaded Deb. "Don't blaspheme like
that! What is religion for if not to keep us from making blunders, and
to help us to bear it when they are made--and to trust--to trust where
we cannot see--"

Deb was unused to preaching, and broke down; but her eyes were sermons
more impressive than any of the thousands that Mary had heard.

"Some day," said Mary, "when I get into a place where I cannot hear
religion spoken of, nor see it practised, I may learn the value of it.
I hope so. I have a chance of it now--the way is clear. I am through
the wood at last."

Deb drew her filmy handkerchief across her eyes.

"Yes, I know." Mary smiled at her sister's grief. "But it is only for
this once, Debbie dear. I did want to let you know--to have the delight
of not being a liar and a shuffler for once. I shall not say such
things again. I am not going to shock anybody else, for Bob's sake.
Bob, of course, must be considered; after all, it was his father. None
of us, even the freest, can be a free agent altogether; I understand
that. I shall hold my tongue. The blessed thing is that that will be
sufficient--a negative attitude, with the mouth shut; one is not driven
any longer to positive deceit, without even being