for 'er an' she lets me 'ave 'em. I
make 'em up into anythink I can--pin-cushions an' bags an' curtings an'
balls. Nobody'd think wot they run to sometimes. Now an' then I sell
some of 'em. Wot I can't sell I give away."

"Drunken Bet's biby plays with 'er ball all day," said Glad.

"Ah!" said Miss Montaubyn, drawing out a long needleful of thread, "Bet,
SHE thinks it worse than it is."

"Could it be worse?" asked Dart. "Could anything be worse than
everything is?"

"Lots," suggested Glad; "might 'ave broke your back, might 'ave a fever,
might be in jail for knifin' someone. 'E wants to 'ear you talk, Miss
Montaubyn; tell 'im all about yerself."

"Me!" her expectant eyes on him. "'E wouldn't want to 'ear it. I
shouldn't want to 'ear it myself. Bein' on the 'alls when yer a pretty
girl ain't an 'elpful life; an' bein' took up an' dropped down till yer
dropped in the gutter an' don't know 'ow to get out--it's wot yer
mustn't let yer mind go back to."

"That's wot the lidy said," called out Glad. "Tell 'im about the lidy.
She doesn't even know who she was." The remark was tossed to Dart.

"Never even 'eard 'er name," with unabated cheer said Miss Montaubyn.
"She come an' she went an' me too low to do anything but lie an' look at
'er and listen. An' 'Which of us two is mad?' I ses to myself. But I
lay thinkin' and thinkin'--an' it was so cheerfle I couldn't get it out
of me 'ead--nor never 'ave since."

"What did she say?"

"I couldn't remember the words--it was the way they took away things a
body's afraid of. It was about things never 'avin' really been like
wot we thought they was. Godamighty now, there ain't a bit of 'arm in
'im."

"What?" he said with a start.

"'E never done the accidents and the trouble. It was us as went out of
the light into the dark. If we'd kep' in the light all the time, an'
thought about it, an' talked about it, we'd never 'ad nothin' else.
'Tain't punishment neither. 'T ain't nothin' but the dark--an' the dark
ain't nothin' but the light bein' away. 'Keep in the light,' she ses,
'never think of nothin' else, an' then you'll begin an' see things.
Everybody's been afraid. There ain't no need. You believe THAT.'"

"Believe?" said Dart heavily.

She nodded.

"'Yes,' ses I to 'er, 'that's where the trouble comes in--believin'.'
And she answers as cool as could be: 'Yes, it is,' she ses, 'we've all
been thinkin' we've been believin', an' none of us 'as. If we 'ad wha