"No," she said presently, "I knew it; no one can do me any good but Cecilia de Noël." "And she believes?" "It is not what she believes, it is what she is." She rested her head upon her hand and looked musingly towards the window, down which the drops were trickling, and said-- "Ever since I have known Cecilia I have always felt that if all the world failed this would be left. Not that I really imagined the world would fail me, but you know how one imagines things, how one asks oneself questions. If I was like this, if I was like that, what should I do? I used to say to myself, if the very worst happened to me, if I was ill of some loathsome disease from which everybody shrank away, or if my mind was unhinged and I was tempted with horrible temptations like I have read about, I would go to Cecilia. She would not turn from me; she would run to meet me as the father in the parable did, not because I was her friend but because I was in trouble. All who are in trouble are Cecilia's friends, and she feels to them just as other people feel towards their own children. And I could tell her everything, show her everything. Others feel the same; I have heard them say so--men as well as women. I know why--Cecilia's pity is so reverent, so pure. A great London doctor said to me once, 'Remember, nothing is shocking or disgusting to a doctor.' That is like Cecilia. No suffering could ever be disgusting or shocking to Cecilia, nor ridiculous, nor grotesque. The more humiliating it was, the more pitiful it would be to her. Anything that suffers is sacred to Cecilia. She would comfort, as if she went on her knees to one; and her touch on one's wounds, one's ugliest wounds, would be like,"--she hesitated and looked about her in quest of a comparison, then, pointing to a picture over the door, a picture of the Magdalene, kissing the bleeding feet upon the Cross, ended, "like that." "Oh, Mrs. Molyneux," I cried, "if there be love like that in the world, then--" The door opened and Castleman entered. "If you please, sir, the carriage is at the door." CHAPTER VII CECILIA'S GOSPEL The rain gradually ceased falling as we drove onward and upward to the station. It stood on high ground, overlooking a wide sweep of downland and fallow, bordered towards the west by close-set woodlands, purple that evening against a sky of limpid gold, which the storm-clouds discovered as they lifted.