Helen paused, almost breathless from inward emotion and rapid speaking.
"My dear, you have uncovered all this in connection with yourself?" gravely queried Mrs. Everleigh.
"_Something_ has uncovered it," said Helen, with a bitter sigh.
"And what is the result of such searching introspection?"
"I feel like a whited sepulcher. I am appalled, shocked beyond measure at myself," said Helen, with a gesture of repugnance.
"Do you think it was your real self who was nursing all the evil you have portrayed?" gently inquired her companion.
"My real self?" she repeated, in perplexity.
"The real self is the purity--the innate consciousness that shrinks from evil, and would be clothed upon with the garment of righteousness, of right thinking and right living," said Mrs. Everleigh.
"Then the evil-thinking is the unreal self, and every one possesses a dual nature? I recognize that--it is the old story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--but when one wakes up to find that even the good he _thinks_ he has done is evil, because of the worm at the core, it becomes a mocking paradox," said Helen bitterly.
"No, dear; not the good he thinks and has done," opposed her companion gently, "for every good thought that has taken form in your consciousness, every good deed that has been the outgrowth of that thought, belongs to your true self, and nothing can rob you of it. Your efforts to conquer adverse circumstances, your determination to achieve success in your profession--I have recently heard Madam Ford sing, and have learned something of her career," the lady smilingly interposed--"and an honorable name and position for yourself and your child are all justifiable and praiseworthy. We have a right to set our standards high and do our utmost, with right motives, to attain them. But the undercurrent of bitterness, the sense of resentment, self-pity, self-righteousness--the thinking that is continually arguing about the faults and sins of the wrongdoer--everything that tends to self-justification by the condemnation of another is all wrong, and must be put out, if we hope ever to attain to our ideals, and know real peace of mind. It matters not how fair our outward living may seem, if the thinking is wrong."