deal of trouble to buy it; she did not want to run another gauntlet of questions.  So the powder had lain in Elizabeth’s dressing-case, unremembered even, until to-night.  Now she took it out with a firm hand; there was no sign of shrinking or fear about her, not because she was incapable of it, for she had her terrors, though she showed them less than some women.  But she was a soldier in the midst of battle whose only object is to dislodge the enemy; what it will cost is not counted.  She waited a moment, then opened the paper so steadily that she spilled none of the powder in the dimness.  She had no last words to say, nothing to leave; it would be understood.  She spread out the paper a little more, still firmly, still so absorbed in the thought of escape as to have taken no account of the way.  Then she bent her face over it and slowly drew nearer.  Suddenly she raised her head; it seemed as if a voice had called her, a voice so clear, so still, so full of power that she waited submissive and wondering.  In another moment she came to herself, the brave self that suffering had thrust away usurping its place by a wicked will.  She drew a long breath as if waking from a horrible dream, and sat quiet for a while, her hands clenched and brought together.  She shivered in the summer air.  Suddenly she rose, took up the paper, and going to the window, tossed it out, scattering its contents.  “It shall never tempt any one like this again,” she said aloud.

Then slipping down to the floor, she leaned her arms upon the windowsill and buried her face in them.

“God, forgive me,” she cried.  “It was Thy cross that I was casting off.  But my life is in Thy guidance.  I will take all the pain from Thy hand.  Forgive me.  Help me against my wicked pride.  And in return for the misery I have brought, give me something good that I may do, some little favor.  And yet—­Thy will be done,” she added brokenly, then trembled lest that Will should refuse the one request which seemed to promise any relief; trembled, but did not retract.  “I will wait, I will trust,” she said, and looked into the depths beyond the stars with no fear that her prayer would fall back into itself like a sound which, finding no home, returns weary, and robbed of its meaning and strength.  She knew that the something which fell upon her was forgiveness too deep for words and an assurance of guidance.  For the telephone is not new but as old as humanity and with a call in every man’s consciousness.  It summons him at times to leave what he is doing and listen.  And when in some depth of need he sends a message, then, because no other ear than his may catch the answer given, is there for that reason none?  The soul is like science; it cannot break through its boundaries and burst in upon the unknowable that surrounds its little realm of knowledge, but wherever it presses against these barriers they recede without being destroyed, and the adventurer, still in his own domain, brings back new treasures to the old life.  The source of power is, we know, forever beyond us, but in going out toward that we enter the realm of power and are charged with it.