"Because--I told you that I might give out. Well--I have given out."

"You told me that the Power can't give out--that you've only got to hold
on to it--that it's no effort. I'm only asking you, Aggy, to hold on."

"You don't know what you're asking."

"I'm asking you only to do what you have done, to give five minutes in
the day to him. You said it was enough. Only five minutes. It isn't much
to ask."

Agatha sighed.

"What difference could it make to you--five minutes?"

"You don't understand," said Agatha.

"I do. I don't ask you to see him, or to bother with him; only to go on
as you were doing."

"You don't understand. It isn't possible to explain it. I can't go on."

"I see. You're tired, Aggy. Well--not now, not to-day. But later, when
you're rested, won't you?"

"Oh, Milly, dear Milly, if I could ..."

"You can. You will. I know you will ..."

"No. You must understand it. Never again. Never again."

"Never?"

"Never."

There was a long silence. At last Milly's voice crept through, strained
and thin, feebly argumentative, the voice of a thing defeated and yet
unconvinced.

"I don't understand you, Agatha. You say it isn't you; you say you're
only a connecting link; that you do nothing; that the Power that does it
is inexhaustible; that there's nothing it can't do, nothing that it
won't do for us, and yet you go and cut yourself off from
it--deliberately--from the thing you believe to be divine."

"I haven't cut myself off from it."

"You've cut Harding off," said Milly. "If you refuse to hold him."

"That wouldn't cut him off--from It. But Milly, holding him was bad; it
wasn't safe."

"It saved him."

"All the same, Milly, it wasn't safe. The thing itself isn't."

"The Power? The divine thing?"

"Yes. It's divine and it's--it's terrible. It does terrible things to
us."

"How could it? If it's divine, wouldn't it be compassionate? Do you
suppose it's less compassionate than--_you_ are? Why, Agatha, when it's
goodness and purity itself----?"

"Goodness and purity are terrible. We don't understand it. It's got its
own laws. What you call prayer's all right--it would be safe, I mean--I
suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. But
this--this is different. It's the highest, Milly; and if you rush in and
make for the highest, can't you see, oh, can't you see how it might
break you? Can't you see what it requires of _you_? Absolute purity. I
told you, Milly. You h