"So she says, but it seems difficult to draw the line between sleeping and waking when one is under opium. I shall be thankful when Lucy can dispense with the drug, though I shall never forget my gratitude when I first saw the doctor administer it. It seemed to wipe out the pain as a wet sponge wipes out the marks on a slate." "I know. There is nothing like it. We had a case in hospital of a man who was stabbed in the body. Modern surgery might have saved him, but he came into hospital too late, and they kept him more or less under morphia till the end. Whenever he began to come out of it, he wailed, 'Give me morphia, give me morphia!' and, oh, how unspeakably thankful one was that there was morphia to give him!" The old man sighed. "It is a difficult subject, the 'mystery of pain.' We believe in its divine mission, and yet our theories vanish in the actual presence of it. When pain has been brought on by sin and folly, and seems morally to have a distinct remedial value, we should surely be very slow to relieve it; and yet how can we, seeing as we do only one little span of existence, judge of remedial value, except on a very small scale?" "And therefore," said Mona deprecatingly, "we should surely err on the safe side, and be merciful, except in a case that is absolutely clear even to our finite eyes. At the best, the wear and tear of pain lowers our stamina--makes us less fit for the battle of life, more open to temptation." He sighed again. "'So runs my dream, but what am I? An infant crying in the night!' Ah, well! if we can say at the last day, 'I was not wise, but I tried to be merciful,' I think we shall find forgiveness: and, if we are to find peace and acceptance, so surely must all those whom we have wittingly or unwittingly wronged." Pleasant as the evening was, Mr Reynolds insisted on making it a very short one. "No, no. Indeed you shall not sit up with Lucy to-night. You want rest as much as she does. If she still needs any one to-morrow, we will talk about it, but she is progressing by strides." He kissed Mona on the forehead, and she went to her own room, to sleep a long dreamless sleep, broken only by the entrance of the hot water next morning. CHAPTER XXIII. A RENCONTRE. True to her promise, Doris called before eleven. "Well, this is a surprise," said Mona. "I did not in the least expect to see you." "Why? I said I would come." "Yes; but I thought you would go off to visit that woman, and forget all about me. What is old friendship when weighed against the misfortune of being 'hadden doon' of a husband and four children!" "The man was a selfish brute," said Doris, ignoring an imputation she would have resented if her mind had been less full of other things. "Did you notice? He let his wife carry more than half the bundles. I sent John to take them from her, and fortunately that put him to shame." "And how did John like it?"