ng ever happened to me so important. Oh, I don't
mean for my work; believe me in _that_, won't you? Since a little girl,
I have thought of these things. And here for two years they have been
about me. To me the Third of the Trinity has been as a voice calling
out of darkness. They told me when I was a bit of a girl that It was
not for me to understand, and that terrible men committed the deadly
sin of blasphemy through It----"

"Poor child," Bedient said, smiling at her. "They didn't know. Could
anything be lovelier for one to think about? The Holy Spirit as the
source of the divine principle in Woman, and Woman ever so eager to
give the spiritual loaf to man! That's the richest thought to me. After
_that_ is realized, all one's thinking must adjust itself to it; as in
Hindu minds, all thoughts adjust to reincarnation, and flow from it....
There is a tender glow of spirit, a sort of ignition of the narrative,
in every instance where a woman approaches the Christ in His mission on
earth. And men seem to find no meaning in these wonderful things....
The women of this world _are_ the symbols and the vessels of the Holy
Spirit. It is only through woman's love that It can be given to the
race. I like to think of it this way: _As a woman brings a child to her
husband, the father, so the Holy Spirit--Mystic Motherhood--is bringing
the World to God, the Father. And Jesus is the first fruits_."

The women regarded each other in silence. Bedient stayed, until the
tardy May dusk effaced the city, all but the myriad points of light.

ELEVENTH CHAPTER

TWO DAVIDS COME TO BETH

Beth Truba awoke late. Goliath of Gath had just fallen with obituary
hiccoughs and a great clatter of armor.... She sat up, and reviewed
recent events backward. The stone had sunk into the forehead. David
came down to meet the giant smiling. There was no anger about it. The
stone had been slung leisurely. Before that, the boy had been brought
in from his sheep-herding to be anointed king. Samuel had seen it in a
vision, and not otherwise.... David found Saul's armor irksome, took up
his staff, and went to the brook for good, sizable stones, just as if
he had spied a wolf slavering at the herds from the brow of the
hill....

Beth laughed, and wondered why the Bible story had come back in her
dream. There seemed no clue, not even when she contemplated the events
of the rather remarkable evening preceding. Many minutes afterward,
however, arranging h