ame courier brought a letter to Isabel, in which he expressed his wonder
that she had not answered his former one.

And as for Isabel, she had to pass through this valley of darkness alone.
Anthony was in London; and even if he had been with her could not have
helped her under these circumstances; her father was dead--she thanked
God for that now--and Mistress Margaret seemed absorbed in her sister's
grief. And so the girl fought with devils alone. The arguments for
Catholicism burned pitilessly clear now; every line and feature in them
stood out distinct and hard. Catholicism, it appeared to her, alone had
the marks of the Bride, visible unity, visible Catholicity, visible
Apostolicity, visible Sanctity;--there they were, the seals of the most
High God. She flung herself back furiously into the Protestantism from
which she had been emerging; there burned in the dark before her the
marks of the Beast, visible disunion, visible nationalism, visible
Erastianism, visible gulfs where holiness should be: that system in which
now she could never find rest again glared at her in all its unconvincing
incoherence, its lack of spirituality, its adulterous union with the
civil power instead of the pure wedlock of the Spouse of Christ. She
wondered once more how she dared to have hesitated so long; or dared to
hesitate still.

On the theological side intellectual arguments of this kind started out,
strong and irrefutable; her emotional drawings towards Catholicism for
the present retired. Feelings might have been disregarded or discredited
by a strong effort of the will; these apparently cold phenomena that
presented themselves to her intellect, could not be thus dealt with. Yet,
strangely enough, even now she would not throw herself resolutely into
Catholicism: the fierce stimulus instead of precipitating the crisis,
petrified it. More than once she started up from her knees in her own
dark room, resolved to awaken the nun and tell her she would wait no
longer, but would turn Catholic at once and have finished with the misery
of suspense: and even as she moved to the door her will found itself
against an impenetrable wall.

And then on the other side all her human nature cried out for
Hubert--Hubert--Hubert. There he stood by her in fancy, day and night,
that chivalrous, courteous lad, who had been loyal to her so long; had
waited so patiently; had run to her with such dear impatience; who was so
wholesome, so strong, so humble