and feel her way to God, for it was God who sought for her and
found her. She heard behind her, as it were, the footsteps of the divine
pursuing power. Once more, as in the mystic days before her marriage, she
had only to close her eyes, and the communion was complete. At night,
when her prayer was ended, she lay motionless in the darkness, till she
seemed to pass into the ultimate bliss, beyond the reach of prayer. There
were moments when she felt herself to be close upon the very vision of
God, the beatitude of the pure.

After these moments Anne found herself contemplating her own inviolate
sanctity.

There was in Anne an immense sincerity, underlying a perfect tangle of
minute deceptions and hypocrisies. She was not deceived as to the supreme
event. She was truly experiencing the great spiritual passion which,
alone of passions, is destined to an immortal satisfaction. She had all
but touched the end of the saint's progress. But she was ignorant, both
of the paths that brought her there, and the paths that had led and might
again lead, her feet astray.

Each night, when she closed her bedroom door, she felt that she was
entering into a sanctuary. She was profoundly, tenderly grateful to her
husband for the renunciation that made that refuge possible to her. She
accepted her blessed isolation as his gift.

This Thursday had been a day of little lacerating distractions. She had
gone through it thirsting for the rest and surrender, the healing silence
of the night.

She undressed slowly, being by nature thorough and deliberate in all her
movements.

She was standing before her looking-glass, about to unpin her hair, when
she heard a low knock at her door. Majendie had been detained, and was
late in coming to take his last look at Peggy before going to bed.

Anne opened the door softly, and signed to him to make no noise. He stole
on tiptoe to the child's cot, and stood there for a moment. Then he came
and sat down in the chair by the dressing-table, where Anne was standing
with her arms raised, unpinning her hair. Majendie had always admired
that attitude in Anne. It was simple, calm, classic, and superbly
feminine. Her long white wrapper clothed her more perfectly than any
dress.

He sat looking at the quick white fingers untwisting the braid of hair.
It hung divided into three strands, still rippling with the braiding,
still dull with its folded warmth. She combed the three into one sleek
sheet that covered