The sight of Janet's pretty Laura was a shameful torture to him; he did not fear her beauty but it rose before him as the very emblem of the thing he dreaded. He drove it off at last, routed it utterly, and lay prone in a mental exhaustion that was like sleep. And into it, as though she were a dream, Theresa came laughing back. He felt no surprise: it seemed she was the thing he had been waiting for. He took her coming as a symbol, a reward for valour, and he welcomed her, but not alone for that. It was her very self he wanted. What choice had he, when he saw her full of courage and comradeship, with eyes that were the doorways to her larger life, and open hands that were like an offering? He took the hands, and as his own tightened on them, as he looked on her, he saw clear. She cleaned his sight, and he knew that arduous fight of his had been more a failure than a triumph. He had not fought for virtue's sake, but for that of his own pride; it was not goodness that he loved, but his own strength, and he was warned that it would have been less a sin had he fallen by his weakness, and not conquered by his strength. Theresa taught him shame as well as love: the face that was before him was not now a flaming one; it shone with the steady light of her eyes, like truth made manifest. "It seems I need you," he said to the vision, and the moment when he realized his human need of her was the moment when he first felt, like an inspiration, his divine need of God. This was in November, more than a year and a half since he had seen Theresa, and this was when his work became a sacrament. He had never lacked in enthusiasm or high purpose, but now, with the fervour of his nature, he offered all he did, through Theresa, up to God. Of these two presences he was always conscious; they were as living as his own heart. Theresa was the high priestess of his temple: it was she who had interceded, she who had handed him the bread of humility to eat. Inevitably, he saw her all spirit for a while, mingled her too freely with the divine, but as he sat by his window on starry winter nights, watching the great bulk of the Blue Hill stand free of the sky, she slipped quietly into her rightful place and, already servant to her bright spirit, he became aware of the holy beauty of her body, and his own love of it. He saw love tearing off the ugly vestments with which men clothe their thoughts, and felt the inseparable fusion of soul and body that love alone can make. He loved her: he never dreamt that she might not love him. His need was so imperative and so profound that it did not permit of doubt, and his faith was so complete that, without vanity, it presupposed and claimed a like faith in her.