“It depends on what view you take of it,”—­I said, laying down my work and trying to fix her attention, a matter which was always difficult—­“We human beings are composed of good and evil particles.  If the good are encouraged, they drive out the evil,—­if the evil, they drive out the good.  It’s the same with the body as the soul,—­ if we encourage the health-working ‘microbes’ as you call them, they will drive out disease from the human organism altogether.”

She sank back on her pillow wearily.

“We can’t do it,”—­she said—­“All the chances are against us.  What’s the use of our trying to encourage ‘health-working microbes’?  The disease-working ones have got the upper hand.  Just think!—­our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are to blame for half our evils.  Their diseases become ours in various new forms.  It’s cruel,—­horrible!  How anyone can believe that a God of Love created such a frightful scheme passes my comprehension!  The whole thing is a mere business of eating to be eaten!”

She looked so wan and wild that I pitied her greatly.

“Surely that is not what you think at the bottom of your heart?” I said, gently—­“I should be very sorry for you if I thought you really meant what you say.”

“Well, you may be as sorry for me as you like”—­and the poor lady blinked away tears from her eyes—­“I need someone to be sorry for me!  I tell you my life is a perfect torture.  Every day I wonder how long I can bear it!  I have such dreadful thoughts!  I picture the horrible things that are happening to different people all over the world, nobody helping them or caring for them, and I almost feel as if I must scream for mercy.  It wouldn’t be any use screaming,—­but the scream is in my soul all the same.  People in prisons, people in shipwrecks, people dying by inches in hospitals, no good in their lives and no hope—­and not a sign of comfort from the God whom the Churches praise!  It’s awful!  I don’t see how anybody can do anything or be ambitious for anything—­it’s all mere waste of energy.  One of the reasons that made me so anxious to have you come on this trip with us is that you always seem contented and happy,—­and I want to know why?  It’s a question of temperament, I suppose—­but do tell me why!”

She stretched out her hand and touched mine appealingly.  I took her worn and wasted fingers in my own and pressed them sympathetically.

“My dear Miss Harland,”—­I began.

“Oh, call me Catherine”—­she interrupted—­“I’m so tired of being Miss Harland!”

“Well, Catherine, then,”—­I said, smiling a little—­“Surely you know why I am contented and happy?”

“No, I do not,”—­she said, with quick, almost querulous? eagerness—­ “I don’t understand it at all.  You have none of the things that please women.  You don’t seem to care about dress though you are always well-gowned—­you don’t go to balls or theatres or race-meetings,—­you are a general favourite, yet you avoid society,—­ you’ve never troubled yourself to take your chances of marriage,—­ and so far as I know or have heard tell about you, you haven’t even a lover!”