She was very silent and distracted at tea, and afterwards—saying that she must write some letters and reports—she shut herself up, and bade good-night to Minta and the children.
But she did not write or read. She hung at the window a long time, watching the stars come out, as the summer light died from the sky, and even the walls and roofs and chimneys of this interminable London spread out before her took a certain dim beauty. And then, slipping down on the floor, with her head against a chair—an attitude of her stormy childhood—she wept with an abandonment and a passion she had not known for years. She thought of Mrs. Jervis—the saint—so near to death, so satisfied with "grace," so steeped in the heavenly life; then of the poor sinner she had just left and of the agony she had no power to stay. Both experiences had this in common—that each had had some part in plunging her deeper into this darkness of self-contempt.
What had come to her? Daring the past weeks there had been something wrestling in her—some new birth—some "conviction of sin," as Mrs. Jervis would have said. As she looked back over all her strenuous youth she hated it. What was wrong with her? Her own word to Anthony Craven returned upon her, mocked her—made now a scourge for her own pride, not a mere, measure of blame for others. Aldous Raeburn, her father and mother, her poor—one and all rose against her—plucked at her—reproached her. "Aye! what, indeed, are wealth and poverty?" cried a voice, which was the voice of them all; "what are opinions—what is influence, beauty, cleverness?—what is anything worth but character—but soul?"
And character—soul—can only be got by self-surrender; and self-surrender comes not of knowledge but of love.
A number of thoughts and phrases, hitherto of little meaning to her, floated into her mind—sank and pressed there. That strange word "grace" for instance!
A year ago it would not have smitten or troubled her. After her first inevitable reaction against the evangelical training of her school years, the rebellious cleverness of youth had easily decided that religion was played out, that Socialism and Science were enough for mankind.
But nobody could live in hospital—nobody could go among the poor—nobody could share the thoughts and hopes of people like Edward Hallin and his sister, without understanding that it is still here in the world—this "grace" that "sustaineth"—however variously interpreted, still living and working, as it worked of old, among the little Galilean towns, in Jerusalem, in Corinth. To Edward Hallin it did not mean the same, perhaps, as it meant to the hard-worked clergymen she knew, or to Mrs. Jervis. But to all it meant the motive power of life—something subduing, transforming, delivering—something that to-night she envied with a passion and a yearning that amazed herself.
How many things she craved, as an eager child craves them! First some moral change, she knew not what—then Aldous Raeburn's pardon and friendship—then and above all, the power to lose herself—the power to love.
Dangerous significant moment in a woman's life—moment at once of despair and of illusion!