was not only
despairing, she was raging too. For she was a woman with nervous force
in her, and it is force that rages in the moments of despair, seeking,
perhaps unconsciously, some means of action and finding none.

"Why should there not be some hope?" asked Malling, quietly.

"To-morrow is Sunday. If you go to morning church at St. Joseph's, and
then to evening church, you will see if there is any hope."

"To evening church?"

"Yes, yes."

She got up.

"You are going?"

"I must. Forgive me!"

She held out her hand.

"But--"

"No, don't come with me, please."

"If I go to St. Joseph's to-morrow, afterward may I see you again?"

"If you think it's worth while."

Her face twisted. Hastily she pulled down her veil, turned away and left
him.

VI

Malling went the next day to morning and evening service at St. Joseph's.
He was not invited to lunch in Onslow Gardens, and he did not see Lady
Sophia. On the whole, he was glad of this. He had enough to keep in his
mind that day. The matter in which he was interested seemed growing
before his eyes, like a thing coming out of the earth, but now beginning
to thrust itself up into regions where perhaps it would eventually be
hidden in darkness, with the great company of mysteries whose unraveling
is beyond the capacity of man.

He had now, he felt sure, a clear comprehension of Lady Sophia. Their
short interview at Burlington House had been illuminating. She was a
typical example of the Adam's-rib woman; that is, of the woman who,
intensely, almost exaggeratedly feminine, can live in any fullness only
through another, and that other a man. Through Mr. Harding Lady Sophia
had hitherto lived, and had doubtless, in her view, triumphed. Obviously
a woman not free from a nervous vanity, and a woman of hungry ambition,
her vanity and ambition had been fed by his growing notoriety, his
increasing success and influence. The rib had thrilled with the body to
which it belonged.

But that time of happy emotion, of admiration, of keen looking forward,
was the property of the past. Lawn sleeves, purple, perhaps,--for who
is more hopeful than this type of woman in the golden moments of
life?--perhaps even an archiepiscopal throne faded from before the eyes
they had gladdened--the eyes of faith in a man.

And a different woman was beginning to appear--a woman who might be as
critical as she had formerly been admiring, a woman capable of becoming
embittered.