re she lodged also considered the miracle, twice
wonderful in that it asked no faith of her.

CHAPTER XXI

It is difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I should think
that Hilda gave herself to the marvellous aspect of what had come and
gone between them, for several hours after Arnold left her. It was not
for some time, at all events, that she arrived at the consideration--the
process was naturally downward--that the soul of the marvel lay in the
exact moment of its happening. Nothing could have been more heaven-sent
than her precious perception, exactly then, that before the shining gift
of Arnold's spiritual sympathy, all her desire for a lesser thing from
him must creep away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser thing, by
infinitely gradual expansion, again became the greater, it remained
permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely
incident that had taken for the moment such command of her and of him.
She would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an instinct
to avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into her content.
Only its sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let that go with
open hands. She wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all
that was so openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently God's. It
will be seen that she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this her
backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent course
of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a
high disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the
end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in
the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen Arnold stood
beyond her ultimate possession.

There were difficulties, but the moment was favourable to her, more
favourable than it would have been the year before, or any year but
this. Before ten days had passed she was able to write to Arnold
describing her plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of success
out of her letter. She kept it out, that, and everything but a calm and
humble statement--any Clarke Brother might have dictated it--of what she
proposed to do. Perhaps the intention was less obvious than the desire
that he should approve it.

The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for an
answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazar
with the gatekeeper of the C