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 only find when we have seen that we are one. It is a mystery. Until we can see that we are one, we remain mere torrent, conditioned by the bed and by the impediments. We are only selves, only free selves, when we have seen that we are one. Then we cannot blame. We can only try to take the rock away.'

'I suppose you are very religious. It all sounds like religion,' Jill murmured, rather helplessly. 'I'm afraid I'm not a bit religious. Though I've been confirmed, of course, and go to church when I'm at home, and all that sort of thing.'

'Religious? No, I am not religious. My family have never been pratiquants. My father was a free-thinker and her church meant little to my mother,' said Marthe Ludérac. 'Perhaps if I had been taught more of religion in my childhood, I should not have had to think for myself things that are quite familiar to religious people.—But I am keeping you, Jill. It is so strange to have someone to whom I can speak my thoughts that I am forgetting. You must go back to Buissac.'

'Yes, I'm afraid I must. Can we meet somewhere to-morrow? I want you to go on telling me about the torrent.—Would it make one feel kinder to oneself, as well as to other people, if one thought of oneself as a torrent? Aren't we inclined to be too kind already?'

'Not more kind,' Marthe smiled, shaking her head. 'More tolerant, perhaps; less frightened. And it is all to the good not to be frightened, do you not think so,