Her, lazily smiling. 'Have to work, or else not eat.

He void. 'One woman's mishap--what is that? A thing as trivial
to the great
world as it's sordid in most eyes. But the time has come when a woman
may look about her and say, What general significance has my secret
pain? Does it "join on" to anything? And I find it _does_. I'm no
longer simply a woman who has stumbled on the way.' With difficulty
she controlled the shake in her voice. 'I'm one who has got up bruised
and bleeding, wiped the dust from her hands and the tears from her
face--and said to herself not merely: Here's one luckless
woman! but--here is a stone of stumbling to many. Let's
see if it can't

be moved out of other women's way. And she calls people to come and
help.
No mortal man, let alone a woman, _by herself_, can move that rock of
offence. But,' she ended with a sudden sombre flare of enthusiasm, 'if

_many_ help, Geoffrey, the thing can be done.' He looked down on her
from

his height with a wondering pity. 'Lord! how you care!' he said, while
the mist deepened

before his eyes. 'Don't be so sad,' she said--not seeming to see his
sadness was not for himself. It was as if she could not turn her

back on him this last time without leaving him comforted. 'Shall
I tell you a secret? Jean's ardent dreams needn't frighten you, if she
has a child. _That_--from
the beginning it was not the strong arm--it was the weakest, the
little, little arms that subdued the fiercest of us.' He held out a
shaking hand, so uncertain, that it might have been begging pity, or
it might have been bestowing it. Even then she did not take it, but a
great gentleness was in her face as she said-- 'You will have other
children,
Geoffrey; for me there was to be only one. Well, well,' she brushed
the tears away, 'since men have tried, and failed to make a decent
world for the little children to live in, it's as well some of us are
childless.
Yes,' she said quietly, taking up the hat and
cloak, '_we_ are the ones who have no excuse for standing aloof from
the fight!' Her hand was on the door. 'Vida!' 'What?' 'You forgot
something.'
She looked back. He was signing

the message. '_This_,' he said. She went
out with the paper in her hand. * * * * * The following pages are
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