Maud began to draw her gently nearer, but Toby surprised her by a sudden passionate movement and slipped down on to the floor, hiding her face against her.

“I’m not fit—­to speak to you!” she said in a vehement, strangled whisper.  “I’m so bad—­so bad.  And I do—­so—­want to be good.”

“My dear, dear child!” Maud said very tenderly.

Toby fought with herself for a space, her thin arms tightly clasping Maud’s knees.  At last, forcing back her distress she lifted her head.

“I’m so dreadfully sorry.  Don’t let it upset you!  Don’t—­tell Jake!”

“You are quite safe with me, dear,” Maud assured her.  “But can’t I help you?”

She knew even as she asked the question that Toby was not prepared to give her full confidence, and her own reserve shrank from asking for it.

Toby looked up at her with quivering lips.  “Oh, you are good!” she said.  “I want to be good—­like you.  But—­I don’t feel as if I ever shall be.”

Maud laid a very gentle hand upon the blue-veined forehead.  “I think goodness is only comparative at the best of times, dear,” she said.  “I don’t feel that I am specially good.  If I seem so to you, it is probably because my life holds very few temptations to be anything else.”

“Ah!” Toby said, with a quick sigh.  “And do you think people ought to be made to suffer for—­for things they can’t help?”

Maud shook her head.  “I am afraid it often happens, dear.”

“And yet you believe in God,” Toby said.

“Yes, I believe in God.”  With quiet reverence Maud made answer.  “And I am quite sure, Toby—­quite, quite sure—­that He never holds people responsible for the things they can’t help.”

“Then why—­” began Toby restlessly.

Maud interrupted her.  “No, no.  Don’t ask why!  The world is as God made it.  ‘We are His workmanship.’  Let Him do with us as He will!”

Toby’s hands clenched.  A frown that was curiously unchildlike drew the wide forehead.  “Are we to be quite passive then?  Just—­slaves?”

“No,” Maud said.  “Servants—­not slaves.  There is a big difference.  And every one of us—­every one of us—­has God’s work to do in the world.”

“And you think that bad people,—­like me—­can do anything?” said Toby.

Maud smiled a little.  “Toby dear, I am quite sure that your work is waiting for you.”

“Don’t know where I’m going to begin,” said Toby, with another sigh.

“My dear, you have begun.”  Maud’s hand smoothed the fair hair.  “Do you think I don’t know how hard you try?”

Toby’s eyes filled with quick tears.  “But is it any good trying?  Shall I ever get away from—­from—­” She broke off with a nervous, upward glance.  “Shall I ever do more than begin?” she substituted rather piteously.

“My dear, yes.”  Very quietly, with absolute decision, Maud made answer.  “You are young—­too young to be hampered by anything that is past.  You have your life before you, and—­to a very great extent—­you can make of it what you will.  There is no need—­believe me, there is no need—­to look back.  There is only time enough for the present.  Just keep on trying!  Make the very best you can of it!  And you will find the future will come out all right.”