“Why, it came to me that there is your mother’s cottage standing empty and all ready to be used. You don’t want your husband to come here to this attic in the inn where he will have to encounter such temptation every time he comes and goes and where he will never be out of reach of his worst enemy, drink. But see! I will take Joy and Peace and we will go and spring clean your mother’s cottage from top to bottom and make it all ready. And oh, Compassionate, you can leave this attic right away—the song is beginning to come true at once—and you and Moody and Craven can all live there together. I will come along every day, and the other friends of the Shepherd will help, I know, and I will help you with the meals and the work and you three can be together in your own home. Oh! Compassionate, you will certainly get better ever so much more quickly as soon as you get out of this oven-like attic, and your husband will be away from temptation!”

A flush of lovely color had flooded into Compassionate’s cheeks and her eyes began to shine like stars at the very mention of such a plan. But she hesitated wistfully.

“Oh, Grace and Glory, it sounds too lovely, almost like the High Places themselves. To think of being home again and out of this place of terrible temptation! But how shall we manage? We must earn something, you know, and this is the only work we can do, poor Moody and I. I do the mending for Murmuring and he will do all the rough jobs about the premises.” She sighed heavily as she spoke and the color faded again from her cheeks. “Murmuring will never let us leave as long as she can get work out of us for almost nothing!”

“No, no!” exclaimed Grace and Glory. “You can never be meant to stay here, just existing in penury and at the expense of poor Moody’s safety. No, never! We will ask the Shepherd and his friends. There must be some way in which you can support yourselves, and Craven too, without being dependent on the Shepherd’s enemies. I believe, too, that Bitterness will be willing to help you move, indeed, to help in any way he can in order to make some sort of atonement to you, for he is utterly wretched over the misery and suffering you have undergone since you came to live and work here.