ce no question of abstract morality would have carried
weight with her. She would have taken any action which would have
saved him from distress, just as surely as she would have plunged into
fire to rescue him.

She would never have stooped to casuistry or self-deception, but she
would never have hesitated. She was not what may be called a religious
woman as we understand the term. She believed with all her heart in a
Supreme God whom she worshipped, but she could not agree to the
restrictions which, it seemed to her, orthodoxy set upon His power, and
she had no sympathy with women who trample heedlessly upon the feelings
of others in a frantic effort to save their own souls. The truth being
that Isabella, like so many of her sex who lead solitary lives, had
constructed for herself a curious philosophy out of the hotch-potch of
maxims, theories, prejudices and principles which she called her
opinions, and it had at any rate the merit of being a philosophy of
self-sacrifice and self-control.

She realised that Philippa's new-found joy was built upon a delusion,
that at any moment it might come tumbling about her ears, but that was
hardly worth consideration, although it aroused in her a sense of pity.

She had said "Love brings suffering," and in the words she had recited
a clause in her creed of life. Had she not been taught by bitter
experience? Love brings suffering, yes; but that was no reason for
shrinking from Love. The greater the value of anything, the greater
the price which must be paid. This was not cynicism, but common sense;
and it was only a coward who did not welcome the suffering as an
intrinsic part of the wonderful whole, only a miser who would not pay
the price.

She herself had paid it--ungrudgingly--in tears--in long years of
loneliness--with empty hands. But with Philippa it was different.
Happy Philippa, who might know the delight of Love's service. It is
never so hard to suffer in the forefront of the battle, it is the
inaction that tortures.

CHAPTER XVIII

MARION SPEAKS HER MIND

"And truth is this to me, and that to thee."--_Idylls of the King_.

"One that would neither misreport nor lie
Not to gain paradise."--_Queen Mary_.
TENNYSON

Philippa was sensible of a certain relief when the post brought no
reply to her letter to Marion. To say that she was dreading her
friend's answer would be over-stating the