It was but natural, perhaps, in the situation in which our heroine found herself, that she should have lost her sense of proportion to the extent of regarding this lady in the light of a remorseless dragon barring her only path to peace.  And those who might have helped her—­if any there were—­feared the dragon as much as she.  Mrs. Simpson undoubtedly would not have relished this characterization, and she is not to have the opportunity of presenting her side of the case.  We are looking at it from Honora’s view, and Honora beheld chimeras.  The woman changed, for Honora, the very aspect of the house of God; it was she who appeared to preside there, or rather to rule by terror.  And Honora, as she glanced at her during the lessons, often wondered if she realized the appalling extent of her cruelty.  Was this woman, who begged so audibly to be delivered from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, in reality a Christian?  Honora hated her, and yet she prayed that God would soften her heart.  Was there no way in which she could be propitiated, appeased?  For the sake of the thing desired, and which it was given this woman to withhold, she was willing to humble herself in the dust.

Honora laid the hospital circular on the desk beside her account book.  She had an ample allowance from Hugh; but lying in a New York bank was what remained of the unexpected legacy she had received from her father, and it was from this that she presently drew a cheque for five hundred dollars,—­a little sacrifice that warmed her blood as she wrote.  Not for the unfortunate in the hospital was she making it, but for him:  and that she could do this from the little store that was her very own gave her a thrill of pride.  She would never need it again.  If he deserted her, it mattered little what became of her.  If he deserted her!

She sat gazing out of the window over the snow, and a new question was in her heart.  Was it as a husband—­that he loved her?  Did their intercourse have that intangible quality of safety that belonged to married life?  And was it not as a mistress rather than a wife that, in their isolation, she watched his moods so jealously?  A mistress!  Her lips parted, and she repeated the word aloud, for self-torture is human.

Her mind dwelt upon their intercourse.  There were the days they spent together, and the evenings, working or reading.  Ah, but had the time ever been when, in the depths of her being, she had felt the real security of a wife?  When she had not always been dimly conscious of a desire to please him, of a struggle to keep him interested and contented?  And there were the days when he rode alone, the nights when he read or wrote alone, when her joy was turned to misery; there were the alternating periods of passion and alienation.  Alienation, perhaps, was too strong a word.  Nevertheless, at such times, her feeling was one of desolation.