perfectly." She looked
up over the yellow sand-hills into the deep sunny sky, and drew a long
breath of the April air involuntarily. "Oh," she said, "a good, big,
perfect soul could enjoy so much."

It seemed as if she thought she had said it all and finished the
subject.

"Well," said Caius, interested in spite of himself, "if God wanted to
make us happy, He could have given us that kind of soul."

"Ah, no! We don't know why things have to grow, but they must;
everything grows--_you_ know that. For some reason, that is the best
way; so there was just one way for those souls to grow in us, and He
showed us how. It is by doing what is quite perfectly right, and bearing
all the suffering that comes because of it, and doing all the giving
side of love, because here we can't get much. Pain is not good in
itself; it is a gate. Our souls are growing all through the gate of the
suffering, and when we get to the other side of it, we shall find we
have won them. God wants us to be greedy for happiness; but we must find
it by going through the gate He went through to show us the way."

Caius stood before her holding the horses; even they had been still
while she was speaking, as if listening to the music of her voice. Caius
felt the misery of a wavering will and conflicting thoughts.

"If I thought," he said, "that God cared about happiness--just simple
happiness--it would make religion seem so much more sensible; but I'm
afraid I don't believe in living after death, or that He cares----"

What she said was wholly unreasonable. She put out her hand and took
his, as if the hand-clasp were a compact.

"Trust God and see," she said.

There was in her white face such a look of glorious hope, that Caius,
half carried away by its inspiration, still quailed before her. After
he had wrung her hand, he found himself brushing his sleeve across his
eyes. As he thought that he had lost her, thought of all that she would
have to endure, of the murder he still longed to commit, and felt all
the agony of indecision again, and suspected that after this he would
scruple to commit it--when all this came upon him, he turned and leaned
against one of the horses, sobbing, conscious in a vague way that he did
not wish to stop himself, but only craved her pity.

Josephine comforted him. She did not apparently try to, she did not do
or say anything to the purpose; but she evinced such consternation at
the sight of his tears, that stronger thou