Then her former mood returned again, and she threw herself upon the sofa, weeping bitterly, and her whole body was convulsed with grief and despair.
Catherine King had foreseen that such a mental struggle would come to Mary when the "secret of the aim" was put before her clearly for the first time. Her experience in other cases led her to hail this paroxysm as a favourable symptom.
All the initiated had to go through this agony when the supreme moment came. This was usually the last, shortest, but fiercest struggle between the old nature and the new—the old nature of religious instincts, Christian sympathies and pities, and the new nature that sought to break through all the tyrannies, to be free of God, of evil and remorse.
It was an unnatural contest that would rend the poor spirit that engaged in it until the new nature had gained the victory, then the angel that is with every soul that is born on earth would go away from it and for ever, leaving it alone, without conscience, free to carry out without scruple whatsoever Reason should order.
So Catherine, familiar with the great crisis through which the girl was passing, said nothing, but quietly left the room, as she knew was the wisest thing to be done, leaving the victim to fight with her agony by herself, and little doubting what the result would be.
CHAPTER VIII.
LIGHT LOVER.
When a man turns his face definitely in that direction, and sets out on his melancholy road to the dogs, he can get over a good deal of ground in two years.