“I----” For a moment Margaret could not speak. “It must be made possible. It can’t go on like this. We must substitute the motive of Sharing for the motive of Gain. It’s the only way out. It’s the only way to stop the cruelty everywhere--in slums or in the Congo or in Gunrooms--that horrible kind of cruelty which is half-excused by a plea of the necessities of competition.... I suppose it does mean a revolution for Christ.... Mother, why do you make it all seem so difficult?” “Because I didn’t want your father’s daughter to starve for a dream. There is no leader for such a revolution.” “But if Christ came again?” “To end the world?” “No; if He came now--as a man.” The elder woman’s eyes filled with fear. Her white fingers trembled on the necklace she wore. “Did I ever give you that idea--that hope? Is it your own?” “Yes, it is my own. Why do you ask? Why do you look like that, mother dear? Are you afraid? What have I done wrong? Tell me.” “I had that hope when I was a child. It is like knowledge of sunshine in a darkened room. But you are tied down, Margaret. You can’t move. You can’t pull back the curtains. It is terrible to be aware of one’s own captivity.” “‘_As the fishes that are snared in an evil net_,’” Margaret said. “Mother, I don’t believe--I believe there _is_ a breaking free. I believe----” “Ah!” It was like a cry, soft, from a great distance, almost inaudible. II For several weeks Margaret would lie awake through the early hours of the night. At first she strove to think connectedly, to lay plans and make resolves; but always she would fall to wondering whether her mother, whose girlhood must have been strangely like her own, had made these very decisions, and, when the test came, had failed to give them effect. And by this wonder her mind was carried towards acceptance of the inevitable. There would come blank periods in her thought when, oppressed by what seemed a clear perception of the futility of effort, she would see her own life as a cockleshell adrift upon the seas of Time. She had no recollection of a Departure, no sure hope of a Landfall. God had closed His eyes, was sleeping; and she was alone, unguarded, unperceived.