"Not knowingly."
"Did you ever fail to love her, and try to help her?"
He drew a long breath.
"But there she lies!" He raised his head. Through the window, on a rocky slope, half a mile away, could be seen the tiny church of Long Whindale, and the little graveyard round it.
"It is very possible that I see the thing morbidly"—he turned to her again with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantly on the woman's heart—"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to any human being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor—if I was so little use to her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy—a dismal hypocrisy—in my claim to teach—or inspire—great multitudes of people—when this one child—who was given into my care—"
He wrung her hands in his, unable to finish his sentence.
Bright tears stood in her eyes; but she persevered. She struck boldly for the public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of the dead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind the memory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the "hungry sheep"—girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, men assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud upon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; and now this rending tragedy at her doors—had tempered anew the naturally high heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynell from a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, only next to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful once or twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. For the sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banished by a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout she showed herself her mother's daughter—with her father's thoughts.
It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impression upon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharine should be informed.
As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiously complex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement was anathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compelling the Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, to remain at his post!
For it was part of Catharine's robust character to look upon any pledge, any accepted responsibility, as something not to be undone by any mere feeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken the thing, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was the dominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her on whom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly.