offended her, which had betrayed her into a sin against her own
motherhood, and cast it from her. She must pluck out her gift and
offer it up in expiation.

And so she knelt there in the darkness and tendered her sacrifice; so
she thrust from her the thing which had been so dear to her; so she
entered into her compact with God.

"Oh, God, grant me my child's life, and I will never write again. I
have sinned in selfishness and vanity, but I am repentant and will sin
no more. I have plucked out my right eye. I have cut off my right
hand. I have cast my gifts from me forever. Grant me my son's life,
and I will never write again!"

Hour after hour she entreated God to make terms with her. The night
crept by, slow-footed and silent, but she was not aware of the passing
of time, or of the deepening of the stillness within the house, or of
the quivering of the sword above her head. She no longer listened for
sounds from that distant room. She no longer strove to pierce the
intervening walls with her mother's sixth sense. She heard nothing but
the voice which had counselled her; she strove for nothing but to obey
that voice. Her whole being concentrated itself into a prayer. She
was conscious only of herself and God, and of her passionate effort to
reach Him.

"Oh, God, _hear_ me! I have sinned, but I will sin no more. My heart
is broken with remorse. I will never write again!"

So she pleaded with God throughout the long night. And pitiful and
insolent as was her bargaining, God must have found in it something to
weigh.

For with the first light of the morning, Ted opened the door--and there
was light in his worn face, too.

"Sheila--_Sheila_!----"

And then they fell into each other's arms, sobbing--sobbing as they
could not have done if their little son had died.

CHAPTER XI

With tragic sincerity Sheila had entered into the compact for her son's
life, and she kept it to the letter. She saw no reason why she should
have a poorer sense of honor toward God than she had toward men and
women; her child had been spared to her, and henceforth it was for her
to fulfill her part, to keep her given word.

She had never understood, indeed, why people made--and broke--promises
to God so lightly. She had found them ready enough to complain if they
considered God unjust to them, but they never seemed to think that it
mattered whether they were "square" with God or not. To them He was a
sort of div