Page:The Great Secret.djvu/288

272 have wronged others, Nature prevented you from wronging yourself. Man is but as a sower walking along and casting the grain upon the ground, but woman is the soil on which the grain is cast. The sower passes untouched, but the soil receives whatever is cast into it, the thistle down and the rank weeds which spread their sturdy roots and will not be eradicated, even although the plough may often turn them up and seemingly destroy them, so that the good grain becomes choked or weakened. Preachers prate of virtue and purity to women who are ripe for fruit when they would be better understood if they preached wisdom, selection and reserve. We are only gardens whom God has fenced in and prepared for one gardener to occupy, and if more than one is permitted to sow, the result is confusion."

"I don't follow you, my love; a garden can take and mature many crops at different times."

"The human garden cannot, for it is all pervaded, with the first sowing; yet Anatole, I hope that true love may keep a constant watch and pluck out the degenerate weeds as they appear, for I want, with all my soul, our child to be your own."

She flung herself on his breast with an abandonment of rapture that he could not understand. How could a man? He only knew that she was all that was tender and delicious, and that satisfied him.

One morning, as they went along the sands after a fearful storm, they had a strange find—a little box lay in the shallow water which, when brought ashore and opened, contained a priest's vestment and stole with other articles appertaining to the sacred office, and, amongst others, a prayer book, rosary and crucifix. The book was called The Garden of the Soul, which no sooner did Eugene behold than she knelt down reverently and kissed.