d toiled at her
domestic duties, year in year out, till ten o'clock at night; she was
patient as laborious, and had never repined under her lot. But her
education was elementary; she knew nothing of political theories,
nothing of science or literature, and, as he looked at Constance Bride,
Breakspeare asked himself what he might not have done, what ambition he
might not have achieved, had it been his fate to wed such a woman as
_that_! Miss Bride was his ideal. He came to Rivenoak less often than
he wished, because the sight of her perturbed his soul and darkened him
with discontent.

"Discourage you!" cried Lashmar. "Heaven forbid! I'm quite sure Mr.
Breakspeare wouldn't take my words in that sense. I am all for zeal and
hopefulness. The curse of our age is pessimism, a result and a cause of
the materialistic spirit. Science, which really involves an infinite
hope, has been misinterpreted by Socialists in the most foolish way,
until we get a miserable languid fatalism, leading to decadence and
despair. The essential of progress is Faith, and Faith can only be
established by the study of Nature."

"That's the kind of thing I like to hear," exclaimed the editor, who,
whilst listening, has tossed off a glass of wine. (The pink of his
cheeks was deepening to a pleasant rosiness, as luncheon drew to its
end.) "_Hoc signo vinces_!"

Lady Ogram, who was regarding Lashmar, said abruptly, "Go on! Talk
away!" And the orator, to whose memory happily occurred a passage of
his French sociologist, proceeded meditatively.

"Two great revolutions in knowledge have affected the modern world.
First came the great astronomic discoveries, which subordinated our
planet, assigned it its place in the universe, made it a little rolling
globe amid innumerable others, instead of the one inhabited world for
whose behalf were created sun and moon and stars. Then the great work
of the biologists, which put man into his rank among animals,
dethroning him from a fantastic dignity, but at the same time honouring
him as the crown of nature's system, the latest product of aeons of
evolution. These conquests of science have put modern man into an
entirely new position, have radically changed his conception of the
world and of himself. Religion, philosophy, morals, politics, all are
revolutionised by this accession of knowledge. It is no exaggeration to
say that the telescope and the microscope have given man a new heart
and soul. _But_--" he paused