The child turned her head as they walked and looked at her. Joan felt herself smarting under that look, but persisted. “So this is our new recruit,” she said. “She is come to bring healing to the sad, sick world—to right all the old, old wrongs.”!

“Don’t forget your promise,” he reminded her, when they parted. “I shall tell Mary she may write to you.” The old fanatic’s eyes passed from face to face. There was almost the suggestion of a smile about the savage mouth.

God. The Eternal Creator. Out of matter, lifeless void, he had moulded His worlds, had ordered His endless firmament. It was finished. The greater task remained: the Universe of mind, of soul. Out of man it should be created. God in man and man in God: made in like image: fellow labourers together with one another: together they should build it. Out of the senseless strife and discord, above the chaos and the tumult should be heard the new command: “Let there be Love.” Madge thought that England, in particular, had been too much given up to luxury and pleasure. There had been too much idleness and empty laughter: Hitchicoo dances and women undressing themselves upon the stage. Even the working classes seemed to think of nothing else but cinemas and beer. She dreamed of a United Kingdom purified by suffering, cleansed by tears; its people drawn together by memory of common sacrifice; class antagonism buried in the grave where Duke’s son and cook’s son would lie side by side: of a new-born Europe rising from the ashes of the old. With Germany beaten, her lust of war burnt out, her hideous doctrine of Force proved to be false, the world would breathe a freer air. Passion and hatred would fall from man’s eyes. The people would see one another and join hands. She had been busy at her machine when Joan had entered; and a pile of delicate white work lay folded on a chair beside her.