was in the outer darkness, we present with her who was in it! We
were not in the outer darkness; had we been, we could not have been
WITH her; we should have been timelessly, spacelessly, absolutely
apart. The darkness knows neither the light nor itself; only the
light knows itself and the darkness also. None but God hates evil
and understands it.

Something was gone from her, which then first, by its absence, she
knew to have been with her every moment of her wicked years. The
source of life had withdrawn itself; all that was left her of
conscious being was the dregs of her dead and corrupted life.

She stood rigid. Mara buried her head in her hands. I gazed on
the face of one who knew existence but not love--knew nor life,
nor joy, nor good; with my eyes I saw the face of a live death!
She knew life only to know that it was dead, and that, in her,
death lived. It was not merely that life had ceased in her, but
that she was consciously a dead thing. She had killed her life,
and was dead--and knew it. She must DEATH IT for ever and ever!
She had tried her hardest to unmake herself, and could not! she was
a dead life! she could not cease! she must BE! In her face I saw
and read beyond its misery--saw in its dismay that the dismay behind
it was more than it could manifest. It sent out a livid gloom;
the light that was in her was darkness, and after its kind it shone.
She was what God could not have created. She had usurped beyond
her share in self-creation, and her part had undone His! She saw
now what she had made, and behold, it was not good! She was as a
conscious corpse, whose coffin would never come to pieces, never
set her free! Her bodily eyes stood wide open, as if gazing into
the heart of horror essential--her own indestructible evil. Her