“It is nothing, I grant you,” said Isma. “But still I do not agree with you about that hopeless death-in-life, as you call it. Our present sorrow is great and heavy enough, God knows, but for me at least it is not hopeless, nor will it be for you when the first stress of the storm is over.” “What do you mean?” cried Alma, almost as fiercely as before, and leaning forward and looking through the dusk into her face as though she hardly credited her ears. “Do you mean to say that either you or I could ever”-- “Yes,” said Isma, interrupting her, and speaking now with eager animation. “Yes, I mean just what you were going to say. And some day, I believe, you will think as I do.” Alma shook her head in mournful incredulity, and Isma noticing the gesture went on-- “Yes, you will! The reason that you do not agree with me now is that yours is a deeper and stronger nature than mine. You are like the sea, and I am like the lake. Your grief and anger struck you dumb at first. “You were in a stupor when I found you on the terrace, and now the depths of your nature are broken up and the storm is raging, and until it is over you will see nothing but your own sorrow and anger. “But with me the storm broke out at once, and I ran to my room and threw myself upon my bed and sobbed and wailed until my mother thought I was going mad. You have not wept yet, and it will be well for you when you do. Your nature is prouder than mine, and it will take longer to melt, but it must melt some time, for we are both women, after all, and then you will see hope through your tears, as I did.” Alma shook her head again, and said in a low, sad, steady voice-- “I can never see hope until I can see Alan as he was when he left me, and you know that is impossible.” “You will never see him again as he was,” replied Isma gently. “But that is no reason why you should not see him better than he was.” “Better?” exclaimed Alma, with an involuntary note of scorn in her voice, which brought a quick flush to Isma’s cheek, and a flash into her eyes for her brother’s sake. “Better! How can that be?” “Just as the man who has fallen and risen again of his own native strength, is better and stronger than the man who has never been tempted,” replied Isma almost hotly. “Remember the lessons we have learnt from the people of Mars since we learnt to communicate with them. You know how they have gone through civilisation after civilisation until they have refined everything out of human nature that makes it human except their animal existence and their intellectual faculties. “They have no passions and they make no mistakes. What we call love they call sexual suitability, the mechanical arrangement into which they have refined our ruling passion. Do you remember how almost impossible Vassilis, after he had perfected the code of signals, found it to make even their brightest and most advanced intellects understand the meaning of jealousy?”