"I knew dimly, as a child knows, and accepts, that Aunt Paula had some wonderful mission and that it had to do with the other world--all you're taught when they teach you to say your prayers. Little by little she made me understand. I grew up before I understood fully. The Guides--Aunt Paula's--I have none as yet--had told her that I was a Light." He caught at this word, for his lover's impatience was burning and beating within him. "Light!" he said; "my Light!" She regarded him gravely, and then, as though his fervor had frightened her, she looked beyond at the apple leaves. "Don't--you'll know soon why you mustn't. Oh, help me, for I am unhappy!" She controlled a little upward ripple of her throat. "She, the Guides say, is a great Light, but I am to be a greater. They sent her to find me, and they directed her to keep me as she has--away from the world. When she first told me that, I was terrified. She had to sit beside me and hold my hand until I went to sleep. It's wonderful how quickly I do sleep when Aunt Paula's with me--she's the most soothing person in the world. If it weren't for her, I don't know what I'd do when I get into my tired times." "You're never going to have any more tired times, Light," he said. She went on inflexibly, but he knew that she had heard: "There was one thing which I did not understand, and neither perhaps did Aunt Paula. The Guides sometimes seem foolish, but in the end they're always wise; I suppose they waited until the time should come. Though I tried to help it along, though I cried with impatience, I couldn't begin to get voices. I've sat in dark rooms for hours, as Aunt Paula wished me to do. I've felt many true things, but I could never say honestly that I heard anything. But the Guides told Aunt Paula 'wait.' And at last she learned what was the matter. "I don't know quite how to tell you this next. It came on the way back from India. She had gone there--but perhaps you won't be interested to know why she went. Though I was more than twenty, I'd never had what you might call a flirtation. I'd been kept by the Guides away from men--as I'd once been kept from other children. There was a young Englishman on the steamer. And I liked him." Blake gave a sudden start, and rose automatically. So this confidence led to another man--that was the obstacle! She seemed to catch his thought. "Oh, not that!" she cried; "he was only an incident--won't you hear me?" Blake dropped at her feet again.