her patience as he showed point after
point of perverted disposition. The result of their talk was a careless
promise from Horace that he would come to Grove Lane not seldomer than
once a week.

He stayed only an hour, resisting Nancy's endeavour to detain him at
least for the mid-day meal. To Mary he spoke formally, awkwardly, as
though unable to accept her position in the house, and then made his
escape like one driven by an evil spirit.

CHAPTER 7

With the clearing of the sky, Nancy's spirit grew lighter. She went
about London, and enjoyed it after her long seclusion in the little
Cornish town; enjoyed, too, her release from manifold restraints and
perils. Her mental suffering had made the physical harder to bear; she
was now recovering health of mind and body, and found with surprise that
life had a new savour, independent of the timorous joy born with her
child. Strangely, as it seemed to her, she grew conscious of a personal
freedom not unlike what she had vainly desired in the days of petulant
girlhood; the sense came only at moments, but was real and precious;
under its influence she forgot everything abnormal in her situation,
and--though without recognising this significance--knew the exultation
of a woman who has justified her being.

A day or two of roaming at large gave her an appetite for activity.
Satisfied that her child was safe and well cared for, she turned her
eyes upon the life of the world, and wished to take some part in
it--not the part she had been wont to picture for herself before reality
supplanted dreams. Horace's example on the one hand, and that of Jessica
Morgan on the other, helped her to contemn mere social excitement and
the idle vanity which formerly she styled pursuit of culture. Must there
not be discoverable, in the world to which she had, or could obtain,
access, some honest, strenuous occupation, which would hold in check her
unprofitable thoughts and soothe her self-respect?

That her fraud, up to and beyond the crucial point, had escaped
detection, must be held so wonderful, that she felt justified in an
assurance of impunity. The narrowest escape of which she was aware had
befallen only a few weeks ago. On the sixth day after the birth of the
child, there was brought to her lodgings at Falmouth a note addressed to
'Miss. Lord.' Letters bearing this address had arrived frequently, and
by the people of the house were supposed to be for Mary Woodruff, who
went by t