ing his house was nothing;
Nanna had always kept it well. Caring for Edith was nothing; she could
not help but care for her. She had promised Walter that she would be a
good wife to him, and she had vowed to herself that she would live her
spiritual life apart.

Was that being a good wife to him? To divorce her soul, her best self,
from him? If she confined her duty to the preservation of the mere
material tie, what would she make of herself? Of him?

It came to her that his need of her was deeper and more spiritual than
that. She argued that there must be something fine in him, or he never
would have appreciated _her_. That other woman didn't count; she had
thrust herself on him. When it came to choosing, he had chosen a
spiritual woman! (Anne had no doubt that she was what she aspired to be.)
And since all things were divinely ordered, Walter's choice was really
God's will. God's hand had led him to her.

It had been a blow to Anne's pride to realise that she had
married--spiritually--beneath her. Her pride now recovered wonderfully,
seeing in this very inequality its opportunity. She beheld herself
superbly seated on an eminence, her spiritual opulence supplying Walter's
poverty. Spiritually, she said, it might also be more blessed to give
than to receive.

Their marriage, in this its new, its immaterial consummation, would not
be unequal. She would raise Walter. That, of course, was what God had
meant her to do all the time. Never again could she look at her husband
with eyes of mortal passion. But her love, which had died, was risen
again; it could still turn to him a glorified and spiritual face; it
could still know passion, a passion immortal and supreme.

But it was an emotion of which by its very nature she could not bring
herself to speak. It could mean nothing to Walter in his yet unspiritual
state. She felt that when he came to her he would insist on some
satisfaction, and there was no satisfaction that she could give to the
sort of claim he would make. Therefore she awaited his coming with
nervous trepidation.

He came in as if nothing had happened. He sank with every symptom of
comfortable assurance into the opposite arm-chair. And he asked no more
formidable question than, "How's your headache?"

"Better, thank you."

"That's all right."

He did not look at her, but his eyes were smiling as if at some agreeable
thought or reminiscence. He had apparently assumed that Anne had
recovered, not onl