"I don't understand you, Agatha. You say it isn't you; you say you're only a connecting link; that you do nothing; that the Power that does it is inexhaustible; that there's nothing it can't do, nothing that it won't do for us, and yet you go and cut yourself off from it--deliberately--from the thing you believe to be divine." "I haven't cut myself off from it." "You've cut Harding off," said Milly. "If you refuse to hold him." "That wouldn't cut him off--from It. But Milly, holding him was bad; it wasn't safe." "It saved him." "All the same, Milly, it wasn't safe. The thing itself isn't." "The Power? The divine thing?" "Yes. It's divine and it's--it's terrible. It does terrible things to us." "How could it? If it's divine, wouldn't it be compassionate? Do you suppose it's less compassionate than--_you_ are? Why, Agatha, when it's goodness and purity itself----?" "Goodness and purity are terrible. We don't understand it. It's got its own laws. What you call prayer's all right--it would be safe, I mean--I suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. But this--this is different. It's the highest, Milly; and if you rush in and make for the highest, can't you see, oh, can't you see how it might break you? Can't you see what it requires of _you_? Absolute purity. I told you, Milly. You have to be crystal to it--crystal without a flaw." "And--if there were a flaw?" "The whole thing, don't you see, would break down; it would be no good. In fact, it would be awfully dangerous." "To whom?" "To you--to them, the people you're helping. You make a connection; you smash down all the walls so that you--you get through to each other, and supposing there was something wrong with _you_, and It doesn't work any longer (the Power, I mean), don't you see that you might do harm where you were trying to help?" "But--Agatha--there was nothing wrong with you." "How do I know? Can anybody be sure there's nothing wrong with them?" "You think," said Milly, "there was a flaw somewhere?" "There must have been--somewhere ..." "What was it? Can't you find out? Can't you think? Think." "Sometimes--I have thought it may have been my fear." "Fear?" "Yes, it's the worst thing. Don't you remember, I told you not to be afraid?" "But Agatha, you were _not_ afraid." "I was--afterwards. I got frightened." "_You?_ And you told _me_ not to be afraid," said Milly. "I had to tell you." "And I wasn't afraid--afterwards. I believed in you. He believed in you." "You shouldn't have. You shouldn't. That was just it." "That was it? I suppose you'll say next it was I who frightened you?"