; she had
thought and prayed there as girl and woman; she had wrestled there often
with despondency or grief, or some of those subtle spiritual temptations
which were all her pure youth had known, till the inner light had dawned
again, and the humble enraptured soul could almost have traced amid the
shadows of that dappled moorland world, between her and the clouds, the
white stoles and 'sleeping wings' of ministering spirits.

But no wrestle had ever been so hard as this. And with what fierce
suddenness had it come upon her! She looked back over the day with
bewilderment. She could see dimly that the Catherine who had started on
that Shanmoor walk had been full of vague misgivings other than those
concerned with a few neglected duties. There had been an undefined sense
of unrest, of difference, of broken equilibrium. She had shown it in the
way in which at first she had tried to keep herself and Robert Elsmere
apart.

And then; beyond the departure from Shanmoor she seemed to lose the
thread of her own history. Memory was drowned in a feeling to which the
resisting soul as yet would give no name. She laid her head on her knees
trembling. She heard again the sweet imperious tones with which he broke
down her opposition about the cloak; she felt again the grasp of his
steadying hand on hers.

But it was only for a very few minutes that she drifted thus. She raised
her head again, scourging herself in shame and self-reproach,
recapturing the empire of the soul with a strong effort. She set herself
to a stern analysis of the whole situation. Clearly Mrs. Thornburgh and
her sisters had been aware for some indefinite time that Mr. Elsmere had
been showing a peculiar interest in her. _Their_ eyes had been open. She
realised now with hot cheeks how many meetings and _tete-a-tetes_ had
been managed for her and Elsmere, and how complacently she had fallen
into Mrs. Thornburgh's snares.

'Have I encouraged him?' she asked herself sternly.

'Yes,' cried the smarting conscience.

'Can I marry him?'

'No,' said conscience again; 'not without deserting your post, not
without betraying your trust.'

What post? What trust? Ah, conscience was ready enough with the answer.
Was it not just ten years since, as a girl of sixteen, prematurely old
and thoughtful, she had sat beside her father's deathbed, while her
delicate hysterical mother, in a state of utter collapse, was kept away
from him by the doctors? She could see the drawn