"How can I sleep," said Lady Dashwood, "when I think of him, worried into the grave by petty anxieties, by the daily fretting of an irresponsible wife, by the hopeless daily task of trying to make something honourable and worthy--out of Belinda and Co.? When I say Belinda and Co., I think not merely of Belinda Scott and her child, but of all that Jim hates: the whole crew of noisy pleasure-hunters that float upon the surface of our social life. The time may come when we shall say to our social parasites, 'Take up your burden of life and work!' The time _will_ come! But meanwhile Jim has to be sacrificed because he is hopelessly just. And yet I wouldn't have him otherwise. Go, dear, try and sleep, for all my talk." Then, as she drew away from her niece, she said in a tense whisper: "What an unforgivable fool he has been!" May closed her eyes intently and said nothing. "Oh, May," sighed Lady Dashwood, "forgive me; I feel so bitter that I could speak against God." May looked up and laid her hand on her aunt's arm. "You know those lines, Aunt Lena-- "Measure thy life by loss and not by gain, Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth!" Lady Dashwood's eyes flashed. "If Jim had offered his life for England I could say that: but are we to pour forth wine to Belinda and Co.?" The two women looked at each other; stared, silently. Then Lady Dashwood began to turn the handle of the door. "Why should he be sacrificed to--to--futilities?" Then she added very softly: "I have had no son of my own, May, so Jim fills the vacant place. I think I could, like Abraham, have sacrificed my son to the Great God of my nation, but this sacrifice! Oh, May, it's so silly! He might have married some nice, quiet Oxford girl any day. And he has waited for this!" She saw the pain in May's eyes and added: "I am wearing you out with my talk. I am getting very selfish. I am thinking too much of my own suffering. You, too, have suffered, dear, and you say nothing," and as she spoke her voice softened to a whisper. "But, May, your sacrifice _was_ to the Great God of your nation--the Great God of all nations." "The sacrifice had nothing to do with me," said May, turning away. "It was his." "But you endure the loss, the vacant place," said Lady Dashwood. "I know what a vacant place means," said May, quietly, "and my vacant place will never be filled--except by the children of other women! Good night, dear aunt," and she walked away quickly, without looking back. Then she found the door of her room and went in. Lady Dashwood's eyes followed her, till the door closed. "I ought not to have said what I did," murmured Lady Dashwood. "Oh, dear May, poor May," and she went back into her room. Gwen was still sleeping peacefully. CHAPTER XIV DIFFERENT VIEWS