release. She felt everything instantly hostile. They
all--Thomas the cat, Edward the parrot, the very sofas and chairs and
cushions--were determined not to let her go.

She saw, more than ever before, that her aunts were preparing some
religious trap for her. They were very quiet about it; they did not
urge her or bully her, but the subtle, silent influence went on so that
the very stair-carpet, the very scuttles that held the coal, became
secret messengers to hale her into the chapel and shut her in there for
ever. After her first visit there the chapel became a nightmare to
her--because, at once, she had felt its power. She had known--she had
always known and it had not needed Mr. Magnus to tell her--that there
was something in this religion--yes, even in the wretched dirt and
disorder of her father's soul--but with that realisation that there was
indeed something, had come also the resolved conviction that life could
not be happy, simple, successful unless one broke from that power
utterly, refused its dictates, gave no hearing to its messages,
surrendered nothing--absolutely nothing--to its influence. Had not some
one said to her once, or was it not in her little red A Kempis, that
"once caught one might never escape again"?

She would prove that, in her own struggle and independence, to be
untrue. The chapel should not have her, nor her father's ghost, nor the
dim half-visualised thoughts and memories that rose like dark shadows
in her soul and vanished again. She would believe in nothing save what
she could see, listen to nothing that was not clear and simple before
her. She was mistress of her own soul.

She did not, in this fashion, think things out for herself. To herself
she simply expressed it that she was going to lead her own life, to
earn her own living, to fight for herself; and that the sooner she
escaped this gloomy, damp, and ill-tempered house the better. She would
never say her prayers again; she would never read the Bible again to
herself or any one else; she would never kneel on those hard chapel
kneelers again; she would never listen to Mr. Warlock's sermons
again--once she had escaped.

Meanwhile she said nothing at all to herself about Martin Warlock, who
was really at the root of the whole matter.

She began at once to take steps. Two years before this a lady had paid,
with her sister, a short visit to St. Dreots and had taken a great
liking to Maggie. They had made friends, and this lady,