'Poor boy!' she said softly. 'I am troubling him. And when he has done so much for me—all that way through the thicket! But the others, ah! Tom, the others!—there was no God to save them.'

'My dearest, in heaven's name, I beseech you, put these thoughts away! There was a God. There is a God. Death opens the way into His kingdom.'

'I used to think so,' said Grace dreamily. 'That was long ago, before I knew, when I thought the world was good.'

'And so it is, Grace; so it is! Give yourself time, dearest, and you will come back to the old thoughts. You will know that the horror which it has pleased God to let you look upon is the exception, not the rule. It is like the tempest which comes and goes, and does its awful work. Peace returns afterwards.'

'Does peace return?' cried the girl, fixing her agonised eyes upon her companion's face; 'and if it does, is it a true peace? This is no dead storm, like a storm of winds and waves. It is a storm of human souls. The passion, the cruelty, the restlessness, the awful, awful, unquenchable thirst, are alive. Oh! I have seen them again and again. It is like the look in the eyes of the wild creatures, misery and pain—misery and pain.' Her voice dropped. Into her face came a look of horror as if some vision long driven back were forcing itself upon her. 'How did it come?' she whispered. 'Where does it go? It must be somewhere, even when there is peace. Is it below us, ready, like the wild beasts, to spring at our throats, or does it go away? When we open our eyes there, shall we see it, misery and pain—misery and pain?'

'Grace, for pity's sake, for my sake,' said Tom hoarsely, 'try to forget. For you the horror is over.'

'For me, but for the others, for the world! Did He make it? Did He give it gentle and good things to triumph over? And what will He do with it by-and-by? Is it to go on for ever and ever and ever?'

'Don't think of it; don't think of it, Grace.'

'I can't help myself,' she sobbed. 'It is—now, at this very moment while we are speaking—the misery, and the cruelty, and the restlessness, and the despair. Hark!' starting up. 'Do you hear?'

'I hear the wild beasts howling, nothing else. Abiman and Purtab are keeping the camp-fires alight. Everything is safe. Oh! my dear! don't look so! you frighten me!'