the difference between
right and wrong was worth nothing. Terrors, vague and misty possessed
her, all the worse because they were not substantial. She could not put
into words what ailed her, and she wrestled with shapeless clinging forms
which she could hardly discern, and could not distangle from her, much
less overthrow. They wound themselves about her, and although they were
but shadows, they made her shriek, and at times she fainted under their
grasp, and thought she could not survive. She had no peace. If soldiers
lie dead upon a battle-field there is an end of them; new armies may be
raised, but the enemy is at any rate weaker by those who are killed. It
is not quite the same with our ghostly foes, for they rise into life
after we think they are buried, and often with greater strength than
ever. There is something awful in the obstinacy of the assaults upon us.
Day after day, night after night, and perhaps year after year, the
wretched citadel is environed, and the pressure of the attack is
unremitting, while the force which resists has to be summoned by a direct
effort of the will, and the moment that effort relaxes the force fails,
and the besiegers swarm upon the fortifications. That which makes for
our destruction, everything that is horrible, seems spontaneously active,
and the opposition is an everlasting struggle.

At last the effect upon Catharine's health was so obvious that Mrs.
Bellamy was alarmed, and went over to Eastthorpe to see Mrs. Furze. Mrs.
Furze in her own mind instantly concluded that Tom was the cause of her
daughter's trouble, but she did not mean to admit it to her. In a sense
Tom was the cause; not that she loved him, but because her refusal of him
brought it vividly before her that her life would be spent without love,
or, at least, without a love which could be acknowledged. It was a
crisis, for the pattern of her existence was henceforth settled, and she
was to live not only without that which is sweetest for woman, but with
no definite object before her. The force in woman is so great that
something with which it can grapple, on which it can expend itself, is a
necessity, and Catharine felt that her strength would have to occupy
itself in twisting straws. It is really this which is the root of many a
poor girl's suffering. As the world is arranged at present, there is too
much power for the mills which have to be turned by it.

Mrs. Furze requested Mrs. Bellamy to send