life, which we call
forgetfulness, could do that. She was so young, there was still an
infinite impulse of growth within her and in the new growth old scars
might pass away.

Desire noticing the new seriousness of his face was conscious of a pang
of guilt. It seems such crass ingratitude to doubt for one instant the
stability of the happiness he had given her. Had he not done more than
it had seemed possible for anyone to do? From the first she had
overflowed with silent gratitude to him. There was wonder yet in the
apparent ease with which he had sauntered into the prison of her life
and, with a laugh and jest, set her free. He had shown her, for the
first time in her life, the blessedness of receiving. Those whose
nature it is to give greatly are not ungenerous to the giving of
others. It is a small and selfish mind which fears to take, and Desire
was neither small nor selfish. She had hidden the thanks she could not
speak deep in her heart, letting them lie there, a core of sweetness,
sweeter for its silence.

Who shall say when in this secret core a wonderful something began to
quicken and to grow? So fine were its beginnings that Desire herself
knew them only as new bloom and color, 'violets sweeter, the blue sky
bluer'--the old eternal miracle of a new-made earth.

She had called this new thing friendship and had been content. Only
today, when she had for an instant glimpsed life through the eyes of
Agnes Martin, had there seemed possible a greater word. In that quiet
room another name had whispered around her heart like the first breath
of a rising wind. She had not dared to listen. Yet, without listening,
she heard. And now, through Li Ho's letter, that other Self who would
have none of love, stretched out a phantom hand and beckoned.

The professor took the letter from her gravely, retaining, for an
instant the unsteady hand that gave it.

"Aren't you able to get away from it yet?" he asked kindly.

"No. Perhaps I never shall. When the memory comes back I feel--sick. It
is even worse in retrospect. When it was my daily life, I lived it. But
now it seems impossible. Am I getting more cowardly, do you think?"

Spence smiled. "I hope you are," he told her. "When you lived under a
daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now
you are getting more normal. Life is a thing of infinite adjustment."

"You think I could get 'adjusted' again if I had to?"

"You won't have to. Why discus