"My dear, my dear! I am Vivien Rosmead, I too have suffered. Come out into the sunshine and let us talk. If even we do not talk we can cry together, and that will help us both." Isla was powerless to be angry. Her brief indignation at the intrusion of a stranger upon her most sacred privacy passed as a tale that is told. "It is very kind of you, but--but--I hardly know you, and there is nothing to be said or done. Everything is over--that is all." "I too have thought so, dear," said Vivien softly. "Come, my poor darling. He does not need you any more. Come, and let us talk and think of those who do." Isla suffered herself to be led away. Afterwards, looking back upon that incident, she was amazed at herself, at the quiet compelling power which Vivien, in common with all the Rosmeads, seemed to possess, and against which ordinary folk could not stand for a moment. Vivien’s arm was about her slender body as they descended the stairs. She it was who guided her out into the flood of the sunshine which, meeting them at the door, seemed to envelop them in a quiet radiance. Isla, as if dazzled, put up her hands to ward it off. "It is cruel," she said in a low, difficult voice. "How can there be any brightness when I am like this? It is very cruel." "Where shall we go?" asked Vivien softly. "Shall we go to some spot where we shall be very, very quiet and undisturbed? I should like you to forget who I am, even what has brought me, and just to be as if I did not exist. If you feel like talking, then talk. But if you want to be quiet, I can be quiet too. Oh, my dear, I can be very, very quiet. I have been through the deeps, where there is nothing possible but dumb silence." Isla then remembered the tragedy of Vivien Rosmead’s life, and her own pity and sympathy which in times past had never failed any in need, awoke to newness of life. The frozen springs of her being leaped again with life, and, with an almost unconscious desire to help, she slipped her hand through Vivien’s arm. "Why is it that life is so full of hideous suffering for women?" she asked with a vague passion. "I used to believe in God--in all things beautiful and good. Now I believe nothing." "Your faith will come back. Even I say that," said Vivien softly. "I don’t want to belittle your suffering, dear, but it is of an impersonal kind. The woman who cannot be blamed if she loses faith is the one who has been cheated in her own self, whose womanhood has been flouted and scorned, whose love has been trampled on and despised. That is where the silent deeps are. May I say just what I will?" "Surely," answered Isla, lifted clean out of herself by something tragic and mysterious in that other woman’s face.