I groaned. “He doesn’t mean to be cruel,” I said, “but he has not the simple instinct—”
“A few of the simpler human instincts are really necessary,” interrupted the Doctor, “in any attempt to help human beings. If the Altruist had more feeling and less transcendentalism, it would be better.”
“It isn’t a week,” I responded, “since he had an intuition of a directly opposite kind. And then I was trying to help him,” I confessed, for a sudden sense of guilt overcame me as I met the Doctor’s clear eyes, “in his attempt to explain to God what He means.”
The fierce expression in her face was changing into a look of tenderness.
“Go to see the child,” she said huskily, “to-morrow, not to-day. She will be quieter then.”
But I waited two long days. The hours were tedious and dull and heavy, full of cloud and rain. No birds were singing in the sunless air, and the grass had forgotten to grow. It seemed to me that in the ending of a life dear to me, all life had paused.
CHAPTER XLII
“For the agony of the world’s struggle is the very life of God. Were He mere spectator, perhaps He too would call life cruel. But in the unity of our lives with His, our joy is His joy; our pain is His.”
I do not know what incoherent words I was saying. Janet stopped me.
“No, don’t,” she said. “I do not feel like that. You need not be sorry for me.”