ook an' arst. P'raps," her smile an illuminating
thing, "me bein' the low an' pore in spirit at the beginnin', an'
settin' 'ere all alone by me-self day in an' day out, just thinkin' it
all over--an' arstin'--an' waitin'--p'raps light was gave me 'cos I was
in such a little place an' in the dark. But I ain't pore in spirit now.
Lor', no, yer can't be when yer've on'y got to believe. 'An' 'itherto
ye 'ave arst nothin' in my name; arst therefore that ye may receive an'
yer joy be made full.'"

"Am I sitting here listening to an old female reprobate's disquisition
on religion?" passed through Antony Dart's mind. "Why am I listening? I
am doing it because here is a creature who BELIEVES--knowing no
doctrine, knowing no church. She BELIEVES--she thinks she KNOWS her
Deity is by her side. She is not afraid. To her simpleness the awful
Unknown is the Known--and WITH her."

"Suppose it were true," he uttered aloud, in response to a sense of
inward tremor, "suppose--it--were--TRUE?" And he was not speaking
either to the woman or the girl, and his forehead was damp.

"Gawd!" said Glad, her chin almost on her knees, her eyes staring
fearsomely. "S'pose it was--an' us sittin' 'ere an' not knowin' it--an'
no one knowin' it--nor gettin' the good of it. Sime as if--" pondering
hard in search of simile, "sime as if no one 'ad never knowed about
'lectricity, an' there wasn't no 'lectric lights nor no 'lectric
nothin'. Onct nobody knowed, an' all the sime it was there--jest
waitin'."

Her fantastic laugh ended for her with a little choking, vaguely
hysteric sound.

"Blimme," she said. "Ain't it queer, us not knowin'--IF IT'S TRUE."

Antony Dart bent forward in his chair. He looked far into the eyes of
the ex-dancer as if some unseen thing within them might answer him.
Miss Montaubyn herself for the moment he did not see.

"What," he stammered hoarsely, his voice broken with awe, "what of the
hideous wrongs--the woes and horrors--and hideous wrongs?"

"There wouldn't be none if WE was right--if we never thought nothin' but
'Good's comin'--good 's 'ere.' If we everyone of us thought it--every
minit of every day."

She did not know she was speaking of a millennium--the end of the world.
She sat by her one candle, threading her needle and believing she was
speaking of To-day.

He laughed a hollow laugh.

"If we were right!" he said. "It would take long--long--long--to make
us all so."

"It would be slow p'raps.