“Are you fit yet for work?” asked Miss Claremont looking a little doubtfully into her companion’s face; it was curiously beautiful this morning, but not with the beauty of physical strength. Indeed Christine had never looked capable of bearing any very great strain and the last few days had taxed her powers to the utmost.
“I must get to work,” she said quietly. “There is no safety in idleness. How odd it seems that a physical break-down comes generally through overwork, and a moral break-down through too little work.”
“When must you leave us?” asked Miss Claremont.
“I think I had better go next week, and if you will keep Charlie a few days longer I can settle into that flat in Victoria Street which I have the refusal of. I shall manage very well there with my maid, and with Dugald to wait on Charlie; it will be necessary to live a quiet life for many reasons.”
Miss Claremont assented, nor was it possible to raise any objection to her companion’s plans. But she could not help secretly wondering whether, with all her good intentions, Christine was strong enough either in health or in character to live a life so beset with difficulties.
CHAPTER XXIX
“It seems indeed one of the deepest of moral laws, that under the stress of trial men will strongly tend at least to be whatever in quieter hours they have made themselves.”—“The Spirit of Discipline.”
Dean Paget.