according to Thy promises.... And grant, Oh most merciful Father, that
we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and sober life."

After a time Lily learned something that helped her. The soul was
greater and stronger than the body and than the mind. The body failed.
It sinned, but that did not touch the unassailable purity and simplicity
of the soul. The soul, which lived on, was always clean. For that reason
there was no hell.

Lily rose and buttoned her coat. Grace was fastening her sables, and
making a delayed decision in satins.

"Mother, I've been thinking it over. I am going to see Aunt Elinor."

Grace waited until the saleswoman had moved away.

"I don't like it, Lily."

"I was thinking, while we were ordering all that stuff. She is a Cardew,
mother. She ought to be having that sort of thing. And just because
grandfather hates her husband, she hasn't anything."

"That is rather silly, dear. They are not in want. I believe he is quite
flourishing."

"She is father's sister. And she is a good woman. We treat her like a
leper."

Grace was weakening. "If you take the car, your grandfather may hear of
it."

"I'll take a taxi."

Grace followed her with uneasy eyes. For years she paid a price for
peace, and not a small price. She had placed her pride on the domestic
altar, and had counted it a worthy sacrifice for Howard's sake. And she
had succeeded. She knew Anthony Cardew had never forgiven her and would
never like her, but he gave her, now and then, the tribute of a grudging
admiration.

And now Lily had come home, a new and different Lily, with her father's
lovableness and his father's obstinacy. Already Grace saw in the girl
the beginning of a passionate protest against things as they were.
Perhaps, had Grace given to Lily the great love of her life, instead of
to Howard, she might have understood her less clearly. As it was, she
shivered slightly as she got into the limousine.

CHAPTER IX

Lily Cardew inspected curiously the east side neighborhood through which
the taxi was passing. She knew vaguely that she was in the vicinity of
one of the Cardew mills, but she had never visited any of the Cardew
plants. She had never been permitted to do so. Perhaps the neighborhood
would have impressed her more had she not seen, in the camp, that life
can be stripped sometimes to its essentials, and still have lost very
little. But the dinginess depressed her. Smoke was in the atmosphere,
like a heavy