She stood—a slim dark, figure—in the recess of the bridge leaning against the stone balustrade while the crowds passed by unheeding, and looked down into the dark-flowing water. How long would it take, she wondered, how long a struggle in those dreadful depths before the soul rose free? And then—even then—would it be freedom, or slavery of another kind, a striving against yet more awful odds, a sinking into yet more fearful depths? Her tired mind wandered to and fro over the problem. So easy to die, if that were all! But after death—what then? Having shirked the one issue, could she possibly hope to be in any sense better equipped for that which lay beyond? Having failed hopelessly to prove herself in the one life, could there be any possibility of making a better bargain for herself in the next? Her brain recoiled from the thought. No, deliverance did not lie that way. Perhaps it did not lie anywhere, she told herself drearily. Perhaps there was no deliverance. Like the prisoners of old, shackled to that stone of fate, perhaps it was her lot to wait until it descended upon her. She had sought so desperately for a way of escape, and now every channel was closed to her. Further seeking—further striving—were useless. God alone could help her now. She looked up at the grey sky and felt the cold rain beating down upon her. Who was it who had once said: “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you”? Strange that such words as those could ever be forgotten! They came upon her now almost as if they had been uttered aloud. And with them, very suddenly, came the memory of her prayer from the Tetherstones on the night of her great need. “From all evil and mischief, from sin, from crafts and assaults of the devil, Good Lord deliver us!” And how wonderful—how God-sent—had been her deliverance! The thought of little Ruth shot across her mind like a ray of light. Again the childish fingers seemed to clasp her own, closely, confidingly, lovingly. It was like a message to her soul—the angel of her deliverance! It was then that the power to pray came to Frances, there on the open crowded bridge between the grey skies and the grey river with the grey stone to support her. She could not have said whence or how it came, but it possessed her for a space to the exclusion of all else. And she prayed—as she had prayed by little Ruth’s death-bed—with a fervour and a depth of faith that amazed herself. Not for deliverance, not for a way of escape, only for strength in her weakness—only for sustenance, lest the journey be too great for her! And when she ceased to pray, when the great moment passed—all too quickly, as such moments always must—when she woke again to physical misery and physical exhaustion, to the dripping skies and the leaden world and the dank uncleanness of the atmosphere, though no sign of any sort came in answer, yet she knew that her prayer was heard.