"Oh, no," said Sheila stiffly, "you have been very kind, and--I am sure--very wise." But her frank gaze had grown guarded; her whole manner had become that of defensive reserve. Yes, clearly, the great moment was over; the drama was ended. "What a queer girl," remarked Mrs. North! to Charlotte, when Sheila had gone. "I predicted a phenomenal future for her--I had her tingling to her finger tips. Then--quite suddenly--the light, the fire was quenched. And do what I would, I couldn't kindle it again. It was very strange--unless----" "Unless----?" "Unless she's going to have a child. I told her that she mustn't have children." "You mean," cried Charlotte incredulously, "that you advised her to shirk the greatest experience possible to a woman? You advised her to forego _that_?" But Alice North lifted her pretty brows and shrugged her histrionic shoulders with an air of fine distaste. "Really, Charlotte," she drawled, "I hadn't suspected you of being so primitive." Walking homeward through the sweet summer dusk, Sheila was far from the listless, extinguished creature whom Alice North had described, however. Never in her life had such a tempest of emotion swept through her being. For she was face to face, at last, with life. The first night of Ted's courtship returned to her now; she smelt the fragrance of climbing roses; she felt his head again upon her breast--the indescribable first touch of love that is unlike all others!--she heard a voice deep within her exulting: "_This_ is _life_!" Ah, how ignorant she had been--how pitifully innocent! To have thought _that_ life! For life was a thing that laid brutal, compelling hands upon you; that destroyed you and created you again; that rent you with unspeakable pangs, with unimaginable terrors, with frantic and powerless rebellions. It was not joy; it was not peace; it was not fulfillment. It was a _force_. Merciless, implacable, irresistible, it seized upon you and _used_ you. For that you were put into the world; for that you dreamed and hoped and struggled--for that moment out of an eternity, that moment of _use_! As she hurried onward, stumbling now and then with a clumsiness alien to her, the sense of lying helpless in the grasp of this force almost drove her to cry out. More than once she lifted her hands to her mouth, and even then little shuddering murmurs broke from her. Helpless? Oh, yes! yes! For that had come to her from which there was no escape. She was trapped. She, too, was to be put to use. Her own work must make way for Nature's. She saw that now. Her own work must make way. For Alice North herself had said that one could not serve art and Nature, too--and Nature had exacted service of her. She had been strong enough to defy Ted's tyranny; but, after all, she could not defeat Nature's. Her work must make way.