THE WOMAN PAYS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10301, 4 November 1911, Page 3

THE WOMAN PAYS.

(By JESSIE ANDERSON in "The Queen.") A prince who had fared forth into the Ways of the World that, ho might haply reach a kingdom sighted a. woman upon tho road before him. and he called to her, for he was alone and the turnings of the ways perplexed him. So they went on together, and presently they came _ to a Gate by the wayside, over which was enrveri in great characters the words " Faith, Hope, axo Love." And the Prince said to his companion : " Enter with m»." But the woman looked down the hard, white, far-stretching road whereon they wore walking, nnd replied: "Nay, this is my way. Wo have been comrades but thus far, and here we part." " Not so, for I want you, and can take you on with me," urged the Prince. " Tn there, where Love is, we can be together for always." "It would be hard, bard for you," murmured the woman, for she knew that it might not be best for him to walk with her. "Let me go on alone, on my own way." "Let me open the Gate," urged the Prince for all answer. " We may have to pay," said the woman, "and I have nothing wherewith to pay. Let me be wise for both." " I shall* pay for both," asserted the Prince, with confidence. And because it was a great thing a.nd a good which the man thought to do, the woman admired him and was silent, and went on as he besought her. When they had come to the Gate and the Prince had pushed it ajar, there appeared to them a Gatekeeper, who held out bis hand to the woman while the Prince slipped within unquestioned. " The man will pay for both," faltered the woman, startled and. ashamed, yet looking toward the Prince with pride in him. " The woman pays," the Gatekeeper made answer gravely. As he spoke he laid hands upon the cloak which pbe had gathered about her. for a chill wind was arising, and at his touch the woman grew afraid, for this cloak was the needed garment named " Prudence." She looked ploadingly towards the Prince, who still held her bv the hand, striving to draw her swiftly onwards, but he only smiled at her troubled face and urged her with his eyes, until she said to the Gatekeeper : "Will it suffice?" "It will pay for the entrance of both." replied the grave Gatekeeper. "But when I return?" questioned the woman. "None leave by the Gate bv which they enter"—and the Gatekeeper's . voice held a warning; but the woman onlv questioned hopefully: '*Then there are other gates? How shall I find them?" " If you would seek the Highway—" began the Keeper. " Both seek the Highway," she quickly interrupted; "that is why we are together, why we o;o on." " To reach the Highway, walk straight on," directed the Keeper. " Straight on, and you shall reach the Gate which opens upon it." "And the price there?" asked tho woman, afraid within her heart that the Prince should be impoverished or lose aught. "And the price?" "That which you may still possess and are willing to pay," replied the Keeper of the Gate, and the woman

knew that his grave, deep eyes cousolled her to draw back; but she smiled bravely, saying to' herself: "It will.'bo""easy to please and to help the Prince by going so far, and I shall pay—my happiness for bis good. Then lie ran go on free, bv himself, into the Way of the Future.'*' For tho woman's eyes were farsighted, so that through the glamorous mists and the tenderly blossomed trees she saw the Way of the Future, while tho Prince, in bis haste saw but the nearby little flowery paths overhung by the sun-glinted mists. Being impatient to tread them, he pulled at her hand, nnd at length at his touch the woman slipped the cloak from her shoulders, laid it in the hands of the Keeper, and so went on within the Gate. The little chill wind rose higher, and, lacking her cloak, tho woman felt cold, and she shivered; but tho Prince, having parted with nothing, felt not the rising wind, and having the woman with him was glad. When she shivered, and Again begged him to go on without her. lest he too should feel the icy cold, lie but drew her closer, wondered with laughter that she should be troubled, and kissed her into silence for tho time. Tn his impatience be had not seen that she bad .parted with her cloak, and, although the wind rose higher, and strands, troubled sounds came to her upon ft. the woman would not speak of her loss to tho man', for she thought within herself: " Then he should thrust his own noon me, and should suffer. My happiness for bis good. The woman pays, if she can ; and I can, for I love him, oven as lis loves me, and love makes riches for all paying. On, on ho hurried her. through a. lovely, smiling land, and when the sun shone and hi.s heart rose higher, the woman grew warmer, and when they turned with the path into sheltered places, or crossed sunlit, sun-warmed grass, the woman would forget her need for her cloak.

_ But. ever and again the wind would rise with a, stronger gust, and while the man, secure in. his cloak, would laugh aloud and make happy mock of it, the woman felt the chill of it, so that at tim.es she shivered, even with her hand in his and. the sunlight upon her.

When she spoke of the growing strength of the adverse wind, the Prince only wondered how it came that women could make so much trouble about nothing. Presently they came to where, from the main path on which they walked together, little pathways branched off. and ever, and again the Prince would choose those, dragging the woman by her hands until they began to ache. There was little beauty to desire in those paths, but the man had a curiosity to see them. So he went on gaily ; hut the woman remembered the command of the Gatekeeper, " Straight on." and she strove to tell this to the Prince. Sometimes he listened for a. time, but for the most part, in the chattering and jabbering of the monkeys and the screaming of the parrots in the trees, and the growl and din of dangerous and unlovely beasts in the thickets, her voice was lost ero it could reach his ears.

At length, sure that she must keep by liis side, because of love, he unwittingly slackened hold upon her. For a time, in the compassion of a groat love, and remembering all that bed been, the woman went'on with him, keeping almost as closely as at first. Presently, however, lacking the warmth which had come to her in the closeness of his clasp, she grew more and more chilled by the wind, so that, in her struggle against the cold, she fell behind*! And she fell the further that she saw that so intent was he upon watching the antics of the apes and the,coil and twist of crawling tilings, that ho made no pauße nor effort to com© nearer to her again. Tn his interest in the by-ways which stretched fai from the main road, he did not miss the old sweet uplifting glimpses of the glamorous hills, nor paused to think that the light of heaven never shone into the narrow byways ; so how should he have guessed that the woman could not walk and breath therein? More and more the din around him made him deaf to her soft call, and presently her voice grew weary, for it was a voice made for the intimate converse of love, not for shouting across widths of noise-filled spaces. And when her last faint call fell unheeded she ceased, in her grief and weariness, to hear the discordant noises, and then the voice of the Keeper of the entrance Gate came to her again, and with solemn clearness. " Straight on." She lifted her eyes and saw the road, ok'ar, hard, and empty—to her, now, ah! so _ empty—straight before her. "Straight on," again commanded the Voice, when she was fain to sink down to rest on the hope of the return of the Prince to the main path on which they had walked together. For a little she had no strength whereby to go on. Surely, she thought, it were better, as well as more easy, to wait there and to send her faint voice across to the tangled ways whereon he' blundered? But at length the Voice constrained her, and in her heart of hearts she know that only had he too obeyed the Voice could he have held her to him, or her tones -have still been heard or hiin. Further, she knew that for her to disregard it now was not to aid the Prince further, but to sin greatly against herself, not merely, as at first, to hurt herself. So she set her face, alone, to the bitter wind, and went on in the main road along which it blew. \ Through it she still heard the Voice counselling "Straight on." Presently it also said : "Trust your own soul." Then other voices came through the wind from the unknown place towards which she was going, faint calls, broken sentences, which grew clearer as she worn, on, until she knew them for voices ol women-souls on the other side of the Walled Garden. And it seemed to her that they had need of her. and so she quickened her pace, and as she hastened she felt the lack of her cloak less and less, for this quickening to the needs of others warmed the life frozen in her veins, letting her soul rise in love to their ii'vds. Thus she came to the Gate of which the Keeper at the entrance bad spoken, and (die knew that it opened upon the Highway of God. And us she drew nearer she saw th:> Keeper thereof over and again open it. to let through some traveller who had paid the price into his outstretched hand. Some paid fair pearls which had yet some flaw in their lustre—Love of the unworthy, Love unvalued, and the like; some paid in heavy leaden coins of IJepentnneo; ethers gave up a glittering World-Hope; and some gave a foolish l)re:un; but all paid without grudge, because of the voices calling to the Highway beyond the Vailed Garden. Xone went through without cost. sa.ve true-mated lovers, who, having already given nil for each other, were j fro? of the Highway, it being their appointed path. Thii_ woman's heart failed her when tb«' Keeper stretched forth his expectant hand towards her, so that she could scarcely murmur: I " ! paid on entrance." "You pay again here if yon would I go out," was tho reply; "that is, you ! fay when you come to the Gate alone. hive you an unworthy or an unvalued love to give up?" " No," said tho woman clearly, although in her heart sho knew that had the Prince Joved enough to have kopt ! from the lesser paths he had raran with I her, straight on, to the Gate of the ' Hiffhway of God. I "If you did amiss after you knew ] aright," said the Keeper, "you may pay with Repentance.' *'l came hither as soon_ as I knew," the woman faltered, despairingly, while the calling voices drew her very soul. " You hare perhaps a foolish J>re?im which you can give.? " said the other. She "shook her head., saying;; '

"No. for I lost it by the way, troubled for the Prince." "Then a Hope, a bright World -Hope?" went on the Keeper of the Gate. "I gave it to the Prince," she made answer and she said it gladly even proudly although her soul was answering the calling voices. To go out alone having none of those things to give up is to pay in Pride," pronounced the stern Keeper, and, stretching forth his hand, ho took from her hair a starry jewel, which she bad scarcely known had been there—the Star of her Womanly Pride. Lacking it, she shrank somewhat together, and many waters, going over her soul, sounded in her ears, so that for a space she could scarcely hear the calling voices, although the Keeper flung the Gate wide open to them. But a froah wind from the Hills of the Agos-To-Be. blew in upon her, and therefrom she drew new life, for in that wind there was warmth, as of human love, which had not been in the wind of Boding and Condemnation winch had blown upon her when she had given up her cloak. So she passed through the Gateway, and it closed behind her. And she stood again alone upon the Highway of God, which stretches across the ■Light-Catching Mountains of the Future, a.nd across them came the voices which called her to service. For this she had paid her wny from tho Walled Garden, and, paying, she had received in exchange her soul, strengthened and enriched by experience of the spirit's needs, and made wiser for devotion bv sorrow and compassion, that she might give it to the service of the Soul's of Women which were yet in the Thoughts of God, beyond the Heights of -(Vie Future.