But Rhoda, although she saw that her failure, in the outcome, would be of more consequence than success would have been, felt the pangs of humbled pride. She talked the matter over with Rachel, Daniel Benedict’s wife. For between her and the Quakeress a warm affection had quickly developed. Rachel Benedict visited her as often as the prison officials would allow, and Rhoda soon found that the little, dove-gray figure, with the sweet, strong face and the silver hair, was sure to bring assuaging of her heartaches and renewal of her spiritual strength. Without making any mention of her personal affairs, Rhoda yet found it possible to talk with her new friend with more intimacy and with greater surety of understanding and response than she had ever been able to do with her mother. “I was so proud, so self-complacent,” she said, “that I thought I could make amends to Mary Ellen for the wrongs that had been done to her. And I showed myself unworthy even to try. I let her be taken, just by being wrapped up for a few minutes in my own affairs, in something that troubled me. Oh, it has been a bitter lesson!” “Thee seems to me to be too much troubled by thy repentance. If thee lets it engross thee it too will become a sin. And perhaps the sin for which thee is repenting does not deserve so much repentance, after all. If thee did this thing believing in thy inmost soul that it was right and wishing in thy inmost soul to do good to others by means of it, then don’t disturb thy heart, Rhoda Ware, with how it seems to have come out. It hasn’t ended yet. And thee can be sure there is plenty of time yet for more good to come out of it than thee ever dreamed of.” “Yes, it didn’t make any difference to Mary Ellen,” Rhoda answered thoughtfully, “for she reached Canada just as safely as if I’d taken her all the way myself. But such an awful wrong had been done to her,--it seemed more horrible than any other case I had known about, and I wanted to suffer for it myself. I wanted to make atonement for another person’s sin. And it has all ended in failure!” “Well, isn’t thee suffering for it? Isn’t thee suffering a great deal more than if thee had been successful? But don’t delude thyself, Rhoda Ware, by thinking thee can do any good by suffering for another person’s sins. We have got to sweat and suffer stripes ourselves for the evil that is in us if we are to be purged of our sins!” At her window that night, Rhoda pondered long upon these words. “I suppose Mrs. Benedict is right,” she said to herself finally. “It was only my pride--and my love, that made me think I could atone for even this one bit of his wrongdoing. He will have to suffer for it, for all of it, himself, before he can see that it is wrong. And we shall all have to suffer, North and South alike, for this awful sin of slavery, for the North is to blame almost as much as the South.