It was Mrs. Munday, poor soul, who all unconsciously had planted the seeds of disbelief in Joan’s mind. Mrs. Munday’s God, from Joan’s point of view, was a most objectionable personage. He talked a lot—or rather Mrs. Munday talked for Him—about His love for little children. But it seemed He only loved them when they were good. Joan was under no delusions about herself. If those were His terms, well, then, so far as she could see, He wasn’t going to be of much use to her. Besides, if He hated naughty children, why did He make them naughty? At a moderate estimate quite half Joan’s wickedness, so it seemed to Joan, came to her unbidden. Take for example that self-examination before the cheval glass. The idea had come into her mind. It had never occurred to her that it was wicked. If, as Mrs. Munday explained, it was the Devil that had whispered it to her, then what did God mean by allowing the Devil to go about persuading little girls to do indecent things? God could do everything. Why didn’t He smash the Devil? It seemed to Joan a mean trick, look at it how you would. Fancy leaving a little girl to fight the Devil all by herself. And then get angry because the Devil won! Joan came to cordially dislike Mrs. Munday’s God. Joan took him into her room at the end of the ward, from where, through the open door, she could still keep watch. They spoke in low tones.!

“And you must not despair,” she continued; “because in the end it will seem to you that you have failed. It is the fallen that win the victories.” “That’s the word,” agreed Mr. Simson. “Braised.” He watched while Mary took things needful from the cupboard, and commenced to peel an onion.

“I am only at the end of a journey when you need me,” he had answered, and they had kissed. And next morning she returned to her own life. “Couldn’t you have saved a bit, Daddy?” she asked, “of all that wealth of youth—just enough to live on?” It was not until well on her way home that Joan, recalling the conversation, found herself smiling at Mary Stopperton’s literal acceptation of the argument. At the time, she remembered, the shadow of a fear had passed over her.