"Then I will be strong if it breaks my heart." Ned often thought of this in after days. Just then he hardly realised how the girl's words affected him. He was so breathlessly interested. Never had he heard people talk like this before. He began to dimly understand how it touched the Labour movement. "You will miss the best part of life, my dear," said Connie. "I say it even after what you have seen of that husband of mine." "You are wrong, Nellie," said Geisner, slowly. "Above us all is a higher Law, forcing us on. To give up what is most precious for the sake of the world is good. To give up that which our instincts lead us to for fear of the world cannot but be bad. For my part, I hold that no door should be closed to woman, either by force of law or by force of conventionalism. But if she claims entrance to the Future, it seems to me that she should not close Life's gate against herself." "I would close Life's gate altogether if I could," cried Nellie, passionately. "I would blot Life out. I would--oh, what would I not do? The things I see around me day after day almost drive me mad." There was silence for a moment, broken then by Connie's soft laugh. "Nellie, my dear child," she observed, "you seem quite in earnest. I hope you won't start with us." "Don't mind her, Nellie," said Josie, softly, speaking for the first time. "Connie laughs because if she didn't she would cry." "I know that," said Nellie. "I don't mind her. Is there one of us who does not feel what a curse living is?" Geisner's firm voice answered: "And is there one of us who does not know what a blessing living might be? Nellie, my girl, you are sad and sorrowful, as we all are at times, and do not feel yet God in all working itself out in unseen ways." "God!" she answered, scornfully. "There is no God. How can there be?" "I do not know. It is as one feels. I do not mean that petty god of creeds and religions, the feeble image that coarse hands have made from vague glimpses caught by those who were indeed inspired. I mean the total force, the imperishable breath, of the universe. And of that breath, my child, you and I and all things are part." Stratton took his cigar from his mouth and quoted: "'I am the breath of the lute, I am the mind of man, Gold's glitter, the light of the diamond and the sea-pearl's lustre wan. I am both good and evil, the deed and the deed's intent--Temptation, victim, sinner, crime, pardon and punishment.'" "Yes," said Geisner; "that and more. Brahma and more than Brahma. What Prince Buddha thought out too. What Jesus the Carpenter dimly recognised. Not only Force, but Purpose, or what for lack of better terms we call Purpose, in it all." "And that Purpose; what is it?" Ned was surprised to hear his own voice uttering his thought.