that she had all but put the matter where it would trouble her no more.  And then there had come a night when she saw that the stranger, by a certain gentleness and trust there were in him, had not been able to believe his own hard words of her.  This man believed that she was good; believed it because he himself was good.  And the moment of that revelation had been terrible to her.  She had felt in Hen’s parlor the smart of coals of fire, the strange, new shame of being trusted, but untrustworthy.  So there had entered her a guilty disquiet:  and afterwards, however she had struggled, however Hugo’s protecting strength had compassed her about, that novel sense had kept growing through the months, steadily gathering momentum....

All this was quite clear to her now.  Nothing had made her tell the truth about Jack Dalhousie except that one man had expected her to.  Of all that had happened to her, here was the beating heart.

No one in her life had met her on this ground before.  She had been expected to be a charming woman if she could, a woman as ornamental as possible.  He only had expected her to be a good woman; and something in her had found the strange call irresistible.  He, by the trusting eyes he had, had put her upon her honor; not her “woman’s honor,” but her honor; and she, who had never had an honor before, had grown one, all for him.  As long as she could remember, men had paid tribute to her in all the ways of men with maids.  But he alone had put any trust in her as a free and moral being; and she had bent the high heavens and all but broken her mother’s heart that he should not have trusted her in vain.

She was far, far from being a good woman.  Hugo certainly was anything but a bad man.  Yet, when all was said, it was her expanding desire to be good that Hugo had stood against.  And the collision had destroyed him.

Was this the great mystery then, the world’s secret?  Was this the wish that each human being had, planted away in the deeps, overlaid and choked, forgotten, yet charged with omnipotence:  the wish to be good?  Were they all waiting for somebody to pass by, sounding the secret call, to drop all and follow?...

Oh, wonder, wonder, that the simple faith of one good man should have power to overthrow princes and powers!...

The car rolled swiftly, its windows open to the sunny day.  All about were the sights and noises of city streets.  But the flying panorama brought no distraction:  out there, men walked as trees.  There blew a light autumn wind, gently kicking at Cally’s veil, waving tendrils of fine hair about her face.  Unaware, suffering had laid its touch upon her; this face was lovely with a deeper meaning:  and yet the young girl’s April-freshness clung to her still.  She was in the first exquisite bloom of her womanhood.  And she sat very still in the rolling car, full of a breathless wonder at the miracle of life.

It had been the year of her spirit’s Odyssey.  And now, when she came at last to fair haven, marvel fell upon marvel:  and the quest of her heart stood saluting her from the shore.  What need had she to ponder or to justify, she who, setting out to find happiness upon the shining earth, had so strangely found it among the yet more shining stars?