“You’ve cut Harding off,” said Milly. “If you refuse to hold him.”
“That wouldn’t cut him off—from It. But, Milly, holding him was bad; it wasn’t safe.”
“All the same, Milly, it wasn’t safe. The thing itself isn’t.”
“Yes. It’s divine and it’s—it’s terrible. It does terrible things to us.”
“How could it? If it’s divine, wouldn’t it be compassionate? Do you suppose it’s less compassionate than—_you_ are? Why, Agatha, when it’s goodness and purity itself—?”
“Goodness and purity are terrible. We don’t understand it. It’s got its own laws. What you call prayer’s all right—it would be safe, I mean—I suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. But _this_—this is different. It’s the highest, Milly; and if you rush in and make for the highest, can’t you see, oh, can’t you _see_ how it might break you? Can’t you see what it requires of _you_? Absolute purity. I told you, Milly. You have to be crystal to it—crystal without a flaw.”
“The whole thing, don’t you see, would break down; it would be no good. In fact, it would be awfully dangerous.”
“To you—to them, the people you’re helping. You make a connection; you smash down all the walls so that you—you get through to each other; and supposing there was something wrong with _you_, and it doesn’t work any longer (the Power, I mean), don’t you see you might do harm where you were trying to help?”
“But—Agatha—there was nothing wrong with you.”
“How do I know? Can anybody be sure there’s nothing wrong with them?”
“You think,” said Milly, “there was a flaw somewhere?”
“What was it? Can’t you find out? Can’t you think? Think.”
“Sometimes—I’ve thought it may have been my fear.”
“Yes, it’s the worst thing. Don’t you remember, I told you not to be afraid?”
“_You_? And you told _me_ not to be afraid,” said Milly.
“And I wasn’t afraid—afterwards. I believed in you. He believed in you.”
“You shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t. That was just it.”
“That was it? I suppose you’ll say next it was I who frightened you?”
As they faced each other there, Agatha, with the terrible, the almost supernatural lucidity she had, saw what was making Milly say that. Milly had been frightened; she felt that she had probably communicated her fright; she knew that was dangerous, and she knew that if it had done harm to Harding, she, and not Agatha, would be responsible. And because she couldn’t face her responsibility, she was trying to fasten upon Agatha some other fault than fear.