oncentrated
on one definite thought, one purpose, one emotion, which with an intense
yet benign fire blended in perfect harmony the life of the soul and of
the body.

For a moment the face in its gravity recalled to her the latest
photograph of Milly, a tragic photograph she did not care to look at
because it touched her with a pity, a remorse, which were after all
quite useless. But the impression was false and momentary.

"No," she said, speaking to the glass, "it's not really like. Poor weak
woman! I understand better now what you have suffered." Then almost
repeating the words of her own cruel subconscious self--"But there's all
the difference between the weak and the strong. I am the stronger, and
the stronger must win; that's written, and it's no use struggling
against the law of nature."

CHAPTER XXVIII

George Goring was never so confident in himself as when he was fighting
an apparently losing game; and the refusal of Mildred to come to him, a
refusal based, as he supposed, on nothing but an insurmountable
prejudice against doing what was not respectable, struck him as a stage
in their relations rather than as the end of them. He did not attempt to
see her until the close of the Easter Vacation. People began to couple
their names, but lightly, without serious meaning, for Goring being
popular with women, had a somewhat exaggerated reputation as a flirt.
When a faithful cousin hinted things about him and Mrs. Stewart to Lady
Augusta, she who believed herself to have seen a number of similar
temporary enslavers, put the matter by, really glad that a harmless
nobody should have succeeded to Maud Langham with her dangerous
opinions.

Ian Stewart on his side was barely acquainted with Goring. Sir John
Ireton and the newspapers informed him that George Goring was a flashy,
untrustworthy politician; and the former added that he was a terrible
nuisance to poor Lord Ipswich and Lady Augusta. That such a man could
attract Mildred would never have occurred to him.

The fear of Milly's return, which she could not altogether banish, still
at times checked and restrained Mildred. Could she but have secured
Tims's assistance in keeping Milly away, she would have felt more
confident of success. It was hopeless to appeal directly to the
hypnotist, but her daring imagination began to conceive a situation in
which mere good sense and humanity must compel Tims to forbid the return
of Milly to a life made impossible