existed here and had written itself across
the night as intensely as beauty ever wrote itself across the sky in
sunset, it need not be that terror is one of the forces which dictate
the plot of the universe. This was a catchment area that drained the
whole city of terror; and how small it was! Certainly terror was among
the moods of the creative Person, whom for the sake of clear thinking
they found it necessary to hold responsible for life, though being
children of this age, and conscious of humanity's grievance, they
thought of Him without love. But it was one of the least frequent and
the most impermanent of His moods. All the people one does not know seem
to be quite happy. Therefore it might be that though Fate had finally
closed the story of Mrs. Melville's life, and had to the end shown her
no mercy, there was no occasion for despair about the future. It might
well be that no other life would ever be so grievous. Therefore it was
with not the least selfish taint of sorrow, it was with tears that were
provoked only by the vanishment of their beloved, that they passed out
through the iron gates.

The scene did not endorse their hopeful reading of the situation. Before
them stretched the avenue, confined on each side by palings with rounded
tops which looked like slurs on a score of music; to the right the
hospital lay behind a flatness of grass, planted in places with shrubs;
and to the left, on the slope of the hill on which the grey workhouse
stood, painted the very grey colour of poverty itself, paupers in white
overalls worked among bare trees. Through this grim landscape they
stepped forward, silent and hand in hand, grieving because she had lived
without glory, she who was so much loved by them, whose life was going
to be so glorious.

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I

Now that they had taken the tickets at Willesden, Ellen felt doubtful of
the whole enterprise. It was very possible that Richard's mother would
not want her. In fact, she had been sure that Richard's mother did not
want her ever since they left Crewe. There a fat, pasty young man had
got in and taken the seat opposite her, and had sat with his pale grey
eyes dwelling on the flying landscape with a slightly sick, devotional
expression, while his lips moved and his plump hands played with a small
cross inscribed "All for Jesus" which hung from his watch-chain.
Presently he had settled down to rest with his hands folded on his lap,
but