to find in life a kindly thing, gazing at the world as one new-born. And
again, Mrs. McQuillen or Ella Finley might be seen running bareheaded
across the street for Miss Grower. Physical force was needed, as the
rector discovered on one occasion; physical force, and something more,
a dauntlessness that kept Sally Grower in the room after the other women
had fled in terror. Then remorse, despondency, another fear . . . .

As the weeks went by, the relapses certainly became fewer. Something was
at work, as real in its effects as the sunlight, but invisible. Hodder
felt it, and watched in suspense while it fought the beasts in this
woman, rending her frame in anguish. The frame might succumb, the breath
might leave it to moulder, but the struggle, he knew, would go until the
beasts were conquered. Whence this knowledge?--for it was knowledge.

On the quieter days of her convalescence she seemed, indeed, more Madonna
than Magdalen as she sat against the pillows, her red-gold hair lying in
two heavy plaits across her shoulders, her cheeks pale; the inner,
consuming fires that smouldered in her eyes died down. At such times her
newly awakened innocence (if it might be called such--pathetic innocence,
in truth!) struck awe into Hodder; her wonder was matched by his own.
Could there be another meaning in life than the pursuit of pleasure,
than the weary effort to keep the body alive?

Such was her query, unformulated. What animated these persons who had
struggled over her so desperately, Sally Grower, Mr. Bentley, and Hodder
himself? Thus her opening mind. For she had a mind.

Mr. Bentley was the chief topic, and little by little he became exalted
into a mystery of which she sought the explanation.