She was shut up with Papa, tight, in the narrow cab that smelt of the mews. Papa, sitting slantways, nearly filled the cab. He was quiet and sad, almost as if he were sorry she was going.

His sadness and quietness fascinated her. He had a mysterious, wonderful, secret life going on in him. Funny you should think of it for the first time in the cab. Supposing you stroked his hand. Better not. He mightn't like it.

Not forty minutes from Liverpool Street to Victoria. If only cabs didn't smell so.

II.

The small, ugly houses streamed past, backs turned to the train, stuck together, rushing, rushing in from the country.

Grey streets, trying to cut across the stream, getting nowhere, carried past sideways on.

Don't look at the houses. Shut your eyes and remember.

Her father's hand on her shoulder. His face, at the carriage window, looking for her. A girl moving back, pushing her to it. "Papa!"

Why hadn't she loved him all the time? Why hadn't she liked his beard?
His nice, brown, silky beard. His poor beard.

Mamma's face, in the hall, breaking up suddenly. Her tears in your mouth. Her arms, crushing you. Mamma's face at the dining-room window. Tears, pricking, cutting your eyelids. Blink them back before the girls see them. Don't think of Mamma.

The Thames. Barking Creek goes into the Thames and the Roding goes into Barking Creek. Yesterday, the last walk with Roddy, across Barking Flats to the river, over the dry, sallow grass, the wind blowing in their faces. Roddy's face, beautiful, like Mamma's, his mouth, white at the edges. Roddy gasping in the wind, trying to laugh, his heart thumping. Roddy was excited when he saw the tall masts of the ships. He had wanted to be a sailor.

Dan's face, when he said good-bye; his hurt, unhappy eyes; the little dark, furry moustache trying to come. Tibby's eyes. Dank wanted to marry Effie. Mark was the only one who got what he wanted.

Better not think of Dank.

She looked shyly at her companions. The stout lady in brown, sitting beside her; kind, thin mouth, pursed to look important; dull kind eyes trying to be wise and sharp behind spectacles, between curtains of dead hair. A grand manner, excessively polite, on the platform, to Papa—Miss Lambert.

The three girls, all facing them. Pam Quin; flaxen pigtail; grown up nose; polite mouth, buttoned, little flaxen and pink old lady, Pam Quin, talking about her thirteenth birthday.

Lucy Elliott, red pig-tail, suddenly sad in her corner, innocent white-face, grey eyes blinking to swallow her tears. Frances Elliott, hay coloured pig-tail, very upright, sitting forward and talking fast to hide her sister's shame.

Mamma's face—Don't think of it.

Green fields and trees rushing past now. Stop a tree and you'll change and feel the train moving. Plato. You can't trust your senses. The cave-dwellers didn't see the things that really moved, only the shadows of the images of the things. Is the world in your mind or your mind in the world? Which really moves? Perhaps the world stands still and you move on and on like the train. If both moved together that would feel like standing still.

Grass banks. Telegraph wires dipping and rising like sea-waves. At Dover there would be the sea.

Mamma's face—Think. Think harder. The world was going on before your mind started. Supposing you lived before, would that settle it? No. A white chalk cutting flashed by. God's mind is what both go on in. That settles it.

The train dashed into a tunnel. A long tunnel. She couldn't remember what she was thinking of the second before they went in. Something that settled it. Settled what? She couldn't think any more.

Dover. The girls standing up, and laughing. They said she had gone to sleep in the train.

III.

There was no sea; only the Maison Dieu Road and the big square house in the walled garden. Brown wire blinds half way up the schoolroom windows. An old lady with grey hair and a kind, blunt face, like Jenny; she unpacked your box in the large, light bedroom, folding and unfolding your things with little gentle, tender hands. Miss Haynes. She hoped you would be happy with them, hoped you wouldn't mind sleeping alone the first night, thought you must be hungry and took you down to tea in the long dining-room.

More girls, pretending not to look at you; talking politely to Miss
Lambert.

After tea they paired off, glad to see each other. She sat in the corner of the schoolroom reading the new green Shakespeare that Roddy had given her. Two girls glanced at her, looked at each other. "Is she doing it for fun?" "Cheek, more likely."

Night. A strange white bed. Two empty beds, strange and white, in the large, light room. She wondered what sort of girls would be sleeping there to-morrow night. A big white curtain: you could draw it across the room and shut them out.

She lay awake, thinking of her mother, crying now and then; thinking of Roddy and Dan. Mysterious, measured sounds came through the open window. That was the sea. She got up and looked out. The deep-walled garden lay under the window, black and clear like a well. Calais was over there. And Paris. Mr. Jourdain had written to say he was going to Paris. She had his letter.

In bed she felt for the sharp edge of the envelope sticking out under the pillow. She threw back the hot blankets. The wind flowed to her, running cold like water over the thin sheet.

A light moved across the ceiling. Somebody had waked her. Somebody was putting the blankets back again, pressing a large, kind hand to her forehead. Miss Lambert.

IV.

"Mais—mais—de grÂce! Ça ne finira jamais—jamais, s'il faut rÉpondre À tes sottises, Marie. RecommenÇons."

Mademoiselle, golden top-knot shining and shaking, blue eyes rolling between black lashes.

"De ta tige dÉtachÉe,
Pauvre feuille dessechÉe"—

DÉtachÉe—dessÉchÉe. They didn't rhyme. Their not rhyming irritated her distress.

She hated the schoolroom: the ochreish wall-paper, the light soiled by the brown wire gauze; the cramped classes, the faint odour of girl's skin; girl's talk in the bedroom when you undressed.

The queer she-things had a wonderful, mysterious life you couldn't touch.

Clara, when she walked with you, smiling with her black-treacle eyes and bad teeth, glad to be talked to. Clara in bed. You bathed her forehead with eau-de-cologne, and she lay there, happy, glad of her headache that made them sorry for her. Clara, waiting for you at the foot of the stairs, looking with dog's eyes, imploring. "Will you walk with me?" "I can't. I'm going with Lucy." She turned her wounded dog's eyes and slunk away, beaten, humble, to walk with the little ones.

Lucy Elliott in the bathing machine, slipping from the cloak of the towel, slender and straight; sea water gluing red weeds of hair to her white skin. Sweet eyes looking towards you in the evening at sewing-time.

"Will you sit with me at sewing?"

"I'm sitting with Rose Godwin."

Sudden sweetness; sudden trouble; grey eyes dark and angry behind sudden tears. She wouldn't look at you; wouldn't tell you what you had done.

Rose Godwin, strong and clever; fourteen; head of the school. Honey-white Roman face; brown-black hair that smelt like Brazilian nuts. Rose Godwin walking with you in the garden.

"You must behave like other people if you expect them to like you."

"I don't expect them. How do I behave?"

"It isn't exactly behaving. It's more the way you talk and look at people. As if you saw slap through them. Or else as if you didn't see them at all. That's worse. People don't like it."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. It was cheeky of you to tell Mademoiselle that those French verses didn't rhyme."

"But they didn't."

"Who cares?"

"I care. I care frightfully."

"There you go. That's exactly what I mean," Rose said. "Who cares if you care? And there's another thing. You're worrying Miss Lambert. This school of hers has got a name for sound religious teaching. You may not like sound religious teaching, but she's got fifteen of us to look after besides you. If you want to be an atheist, go and be it by yourself."

"I'm not an atheist."

"Well, whatever silly thing you are. You mustn't talk about it to the girls. It isn't fair," Rose said.

"All right. I won't."

"On your honour?"

"On my honour."

V.

A three-cornered note on her dressing-table at bed-time:

Sept. 20th, 1878. Maison Dieu Lodge.

"My dear Mary: Our talk was not satisfactory. Unless you can assure me by to-morrow morning that you believe in the Blessed Trinity and all the other truths of our most holy religion, I fear that, much as we love you, we dare not keep you with us, for your school-fellows' sake.

"Think it over, my dear child, and let me know. Pray to God to-night to change your heart and mind and give you His Holy Spirit.

"Affectionately yours,

"Henrietta Lambert."

The Trinity. A three-cornered note.

"My dear Miss Lambert: I am very sorry; but it really isn't any good, and if it was it couldn't be done in the time. You wouldn't like it if I told you lies, would you? That's why I can't join in the prayers and say the Creed and bow; in Church or anywhere. Rose made me promise not to talk about it, and I won't.

"If you must send me away to-morrow morning, you must. But I'm glad you love me. I was afraid you didn't.

"With love, your very affectionate

"Mary Olivier."

"P.S.—I've folded my clothes all ready for packing."

To-morrow the clothes were put back again in their drawers. She wasn't going. Miss Lambert said something about Rose and Lucy and "kindness to poor Clara."

VI.

Rose Godwin told her that home-sickness wore off. It didn't. It came beating up and up, like madness, out of nothing. The French verbs, grey, slender as little verses on the page, the French verbs swam together and sank under the clear-floating images of home-sickness. Mamma's face, Roddy's, Dan's face. Tall trees, the Essex fields, flat as water, falling away behind them. Little feathery trees, flying low on the sky-line. Outside the hallucination the soiled light shut you in.

The soiled light; odours from the warm roots of girl's hair; and Sunday. Sunday; stale odours of churches. You wrote out the sermon you had not listened to and had not heard. Somebody told you the text, and you amused yourself by seeing how near you could get to what you would have heard if you had listened. After tea, hymns; then church again. Your heart laboured with the strain of kneeling, arms lifted up to the high pew ledge. You breathed pew dust. Your brain swayed like a bladder, brittle, swollen with hot gas-fumes. After supper, prayers again. Sunday was over.

On Monday, the tenth day, she ran away to Dover Harbour. She had thought she could get to London with two weeks' pocket-money and what was left of Uncle Victor's tip after she had paid for the eau-de-cologne; but the ticket man said it would only take her as far as Canterbury. She had frightened Miss Lambert and made her tremble: all for nothing, except the sight of the Harbour. It was dreadful to see her tremble. Even the Harbour wasn't worth it.

A miracle would have to happen.

Two weeks passed and three weeks. And on the first evening of the fourth week the miracle happened. Rose Godwin came to her and whispered: "You're wanted in the dining-room."

Her mother's letter lay open on the table. A tear had made a glazed snail's track down Miss Lambert's cheek; and Mary thought that one of them was dead—Roddy—Dan—Papa.

"My dear, my dear—don't cry. You're going home."

"Why? Why am I going?"

She could see the dull, kind eyes trying to look clever.

"Because your mother has sent for you. She wants you back again."

"Mamma? What does she want me for?"

Miss Lambert's eyes turned aside slantways. She swallowed something in her throat, making a funny noise: qualk-qualk.

"It isn't you? You aren't sending me away?"

"No; we're not sending you. But we think it's best for you to go. We can't bear to see your dear, unhappy little face going about the passages."

"Does it mean that Mamma isn't happy without me?"

"Well—she would miss her only daughter, wouldn't she?"

The miracle. The shining, lovely miracle.

"Mary Olivier is going! Mary Olivier is going!"

Actually the girls were sorry. Too sorry. The compassion in Rose Godwin's face stirred a doubt. Doubt of the miracle.

She carried her books to the white curtained room where Miss Haynes knelt by her trunk, packing her clothes with little gentle, tender hands.

"Miss Haynes" (suddenly), "I'm not expelled, am I?"

"Expelled? My dear child, who's talking about expulsion?"

As if she said, When miracles are worked for you, accept them.

She lay awake, thinking what she should say to her mother when she got home. She would have to tell her that just at first she very nearly was expelled. Then her mother would believe in her unbelief and not think she was shamming.

And she would have to explain about her unbelief. And about Pantheism.

VII.

She wondered how she would set about it. It wouldn't do to start suddenly by saying you didn't believe in Jesus or the God of the Old Testament or Hell. That would hurt her horribly. The only decent thing would be to let her see how beautiful Spinoza's God was and leave it to her to make the comparison.

You would have to make it quite clear to yourself first. It was like this. There were the five elm trees, and there was the happy white light on the fields. God was the trees. He was the happy light and he was your happiness. There was Catty singing in the kitchen. God was Catty.

Oh—and there was Papa and Papa's temper. God would have to be Papa too.

Spinoza couldn't have meant it that way.

He meant that though God was all Papa, Papa was not all God. He was only a bit of him. He meant that if God was the only reality, Papa wouldn't be quite real.

But if Papa wasn't quite real then Mamma and Mark were not quite real either.

If Spinoza had meant that—

But perhaps he hadn't. Perhaps he meant that parts of Papa, the parts you saw most of—his beard, for instance, and his temper—were not quite real, but that some other part of him, the part you couldn't see, might be real in the same way that God was. That would be Papa himself, and it would be God too. And if God could be Papa, he would have no difficulty at all in being Mamma and Mark.

Surely Mamma would see that, if you had to have a God, Spinoza's was by far the nicest God, besides being the easiest to believe in. Surely it would please her to think like that about Papa, to know that his temper was not quite real, and that your sin, when you sinned, was not quite real, so that not even your sin could separate you from God. All your life Mamma had dinned into you the agony of separation from God, and the necessity of the Atonement. She would feel much more comfortable if she knew that there never had been any separation, and that there needn't be any Atonement.

Of course she might not like the idea of sin being somehow inside God. She might say it looked bad. But if it wasn't inside God, it would have to be outside him, supporting itself and causing itself, and then where were you? You would have to say that God was not the cause of all things, and that would be much worse.

Surely if you put it to her like that—? But somehow she couldn't hear herself saying all that to her mother. Supposing Mamma wouldn't listen?

And she couldn't hear herself talking about her happiness, the sudden, secret happiness that more than anything was like God. When she thought of it she was hot and cold by turns and she had no words for it. She remembered the first time it had come to her, and how she had found her mother in the drawing-room and had knelt down at her knees and kissed her hands with the idea of drawing her into her happiness. And she remembered her mother's face. It made her ashamed, even now, as if she had been silly. She thought: I shall never be able to talk about it to Mamma.

Yet—perhaps—now that the miracle had happened—

VIII.

In the morning Miss Lambert took her up to London. She had a sort of idea that the kind lady talked to her a great deal, about God and the Christian religion. But she couldn't listen; she couldn't talk; she couldn't think now.

For three hours, in the train, in the waiting-room at Victoria, while Miss Lambert talked to Papa outside, in the cab, alone with Papa—Miss Lambert must have said something nice about her, for he looked pleased, as if he wouldn't mind if you did stroke his hand—in Mr. Parish's wagonette, she sat happy and still, contemplating the shining, lovely miracle.

IX.

She saw Catty open the front door and run away. Her mother was coming slowly down the narrow hall.

She ran up the flagged path.

"Mamma!" She flung herself to the embrace.

Her mother swerved from her, staggering back and putting out her hands between them. Aware of Mr. Parish shouldering the trunk, she turned into the open dining-room. Mary followed her and shut the door.

Her mother sat down, helplessly. Mary saw that she was crying; she had been crying a long time. Her soaked eyelashes were parted by her tears and gathered into points.

"Mamma—what is it?"

"What is it? You've disgraced yourself. Everlastingly. You've disgraced your father, and you've disgraced me. That's what it is."

"I haven't done anything of the sort, Mamma."

"You don't think it's a disgrace, then, to be expelled? For infidelity."

"But I'm not expelled."

"You are expelled. And you know it."

"No. They said I wasn't. They didn't want me to go. They told me you wanted me back again."

"Is it likely I should want you when you hadn't been gone three weeks?"

She could hear herself gasp, see herself standing there, open-mouthed, idiotic.

Nothing could shake her mother in her belief that she had been expelled.

"Of course, if it makes you happier to believe it," she said at last, "do. Will you let me see Miss Lambert's letter?"

"No," her mother said. "I will not."

Suddenly she felt hard and strong, grown-up in her sad wisdom. Her mother didn't love her. She never had loved her. Nothing she could ever do would make her love her. Miracles didn't happen.

She thought: "I wonder why she won't let me see Miss Lambert's letter?"

She went upstairs to her room. She leaned on the sill of the open window, looking out, drinking in the sweet air of the autumn fields. The five elms raised golden heads to a blue sky.

Her childhood had died with a little gasp.

Catty came in to unpack her box. Catty, with wet cheeks, kissed a dead child.