Page:Across the Stream.djvu/322

312 hand, as in the hand of all who are foes to evil, was the irresistible weapon, could she but use its power to the full.…

She stood, as she knew, in the face of the deadliest peril by which any living thing, into which the breath of God has passed, can be confronted. There is no soul so strong that evil can cease to be a menace for it, and here, facing her, was the power that had already perverted all that Archie held of goodness and humanity. There it stood, one victim already its helpless prisoner, and it lusted for more. And the wordless struggle, as old as evil itself, began.

She would not give ground. Her soul laid itself open, and let the light invisible shine on it. In this struggle there were no strivings or wrestlings; she had but to stay quiet, and in just that achievement of quietness the struggle lay. Once for a moment all Hell swirled and exulted round her, for her love for Archie let itself contemplate the human and material aspect of him; the next she put all that away from her, and again stood with his soul, so to speak, in her uplifted hands, offering it to God. In the very storm-centre of this evil which shrieked and raged round her, there must be, and there was, a space where the peace that passe th understanding dwelt in serene calm. The storm might shift and envelope her again in its bellowings, but again and yet again she had to regain the centre where no blast of it could penetrate.

How long this lasted she could not tell. Her body was quite conscious of its ordinary perceptions; the blind tapped on the window, and there came from outside the stir of distant traffic. But she did not take her gaze from those awful eyes that sometimes smiled, sometimes blazed with hate. Steadily and firmly she looked at them and through them, for behind them, as behind the cloud, was the sunlight of God.

And then there came a change. It seemed that the