" said Catherine.

He smiled at her gaily--cruelly, she thought a moment afterwards when
she was alone in her bedroom.

"Sad?" he said. "I don't think so, for I love drama. Life is dramatic.
If it were not it would be intolerable."

And still the nightingale sang. But he did not hear it. Catherine heard
it till she fell asleep.

Now Mark began to write with assiduity. Catherine busied herself with
her household duties, with the garden and with charities in the
neighbouring Parish. Her mother's rather hysterical beliefs lost their
hysteria in her, at this period, and were softened and rendered large
hearted. Catherine's sympathy with the world was indeed a living thing,
not simply a fine idea. While Mark was shut up every morning with his
writing she visited the poor, sat by the sick, and played with the
village children. The Parish--this came out forcibly at her trial,--grew
to love her. She was the prettiest Lady Bountiful. The impress made upon
her by her mother was visible in all this. For Mrs. Ardagh, rigid,
melancholy as she was sometimes, was genuinely charitable, genuinely
dutiful. If she adored the forms of religion she loved also its
essence,--the doing of good. In these many mornings Catherine was like
her mother--improved. But in the evenings she no longer resembled Mrs.
Ardagh, but rather, in a degree, echoed her father, and responded to his
vehement, if furtive, teachings. For in the evenings Mark read to her
what he had written during the day and discussed it with her in all its
bearings. He recognised the clear quickness of Catherine's intellect.
Yet she very soon noticed that he was exceedingly inflexible with
regard to his work. He liked to discuss, he did not like to alter, it.

One night, when he had finished the last completed chapter, he laid down
the manuscript and said,

"Well, Kitty?"

Catherine was lying on a couch near the open French window. She did not
speak until Mark repeated,

"Well?"

Then she said,

"I think that far the finest chapter of your book----"

Mark smiled triumphantly.

"But it seems to me terribly immoral," she finished.

"Oh, that's all right, dear. So long as it is properly worked out,
inevitable."

"It teaches----"

"Nothing, Kitty--nothing. It merely describes what is."

"But surely it may do harm."

"Not if it is truly artistic. And you think----"

"It that? Yes, I do. But, Mark, art is not all."

"Your father would say so."

"My father--yes."