ain in stubborn
despair--for all these changes the Presence had no rebuke; the torturing
longing love, the misery, the relapses into sullen rebellion, and then
the slow, slow return towards self-control again, all these it beheld
with pity the most tender. For it knew that this was a last struggle, it
knew that this woman, though torn and crushed, would in the end come out
on the side of right--that strange hard bitter right, which, were this
world all, would be plain wrong. And Margaret herself knew it also, yes
even now miserably knew (and rebelled against it), that she should come
out on that hard side; and from that side go forward. It would be
blindly, wretchedly; there could be for her no hope of happiness, no
hope even of resignation; she scorned pretenses and substitutes, and
lies were to her no better because they were pious lies. She could
endure, and she must endure; and that would be all. She could see no
farther before her now than the next step in her path, small and near
and dreary; thus it would always be; no wide outlook but a succession of
little steps, all near and all dreary. So it would continue, and with
always the same effort. And that would be her life.

She did not come fully to this now, her love still tortured her. And
then at last the merciful Presence touched her hot eyes and despairing
heart, and with the picture still held close, she sank into a dreamless
lethargy.

When Celestine ventured to steal softly in before dawn, she found her
charge like a figure of snow on the floor, the lamplight shining across
the white throat, the only place where its ray touched her.

The New England woman bent over her noiselessly. Then she lifted her. As
she did so the little picture dropped; she had no need to take it up to
know whose face was there. "Poor child?"--this was the gaunt old maid's,
mute cry. She had the pity of a woman for a woman.

She placed Margaret in bed; then lifting the picture with a delicate
modesty which there was no one there to see, she put it hurriedly back
in her hand without looking at it, and laid the hand where it had been,
across the fair breast. "When she comes to, first thing she'll remember
it and worry. And then she'll find it there, and think nobody knows.
She'll think she went back to bed herself." Thus she guarded her.

Grim old Celestine believed ardently, like the Doctor, in love. But like
the Doctor, too, she believed that marriage was indissoluble; the
Caroli