ble just because, at the moment of
renunciation, the world would, for the first time, suspect her guilt. To
Mark it seemed now the crowning touch of mercy that the criminal should
be allowed to drink deep of the chalice. "Her own affair"--that was what
the dying mother had said of the unfortunate child to whom she offered
so gross a temptation.

And in the depths of his mind there was the conviction that it was a
particular truth as to this individual soul, that not only would the
heroic be the only antagonist to the base, but that some such moral
revolution alone could be the beginning of cleansing of what had become
foul, and the driving out of the noxious and the vile.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD

It was in the evening, and Edmund was waiting in Rose's drawing-room
until she should come back from a meeting of one of her charitable
committees.

He was walking up and down the room with a face at once very grave and
very alert. Even his carriage during the last few weeks had seemed to
Rose to have gained in firmness and dignity, and perhaps she was right.
Nor had she failed to notice that one or two small, straight pieces of
grey hair could now be seen near the temples. He looked a little older,
a little more brisk, a little more firm, and distinctly more cheerful
since his reverses. It is no paradox to speak of cheerfulness in sorrow,
or to say that the whole nature may be happier in grief than in the days
of apparent pleasure. It is not only in those who have acquired deep
religious peace that this may be true, for even in gaining energy and a
balance in natural action, there may be happiness amidst pain.

Rose came in without seeing that anyone was in the room, and gave a
start when she saw the tall figure by the window. The evening light
showed him a little grey, a little worn in appearance, a little more
openly kindly in the dark eyes. Something that she had fancied dim and
clouded lately--only once or twice, not always--now shone in his face
with its full brightness.

"Has anything happened, Edmund? Have you come to tell me anything?"

He came across the room to her and took her hand in silence, and then
said:

"You look tired. Have you had tea?"

"Oh, never mind tea," she answered. "Do tell me! Seriously, something
has happened?"

"It is nothing of any consequence--nothing that need disturb you in the
least. It is only about my own stupid affairs, and, on the whole, it is
very go