Then she went to her room and deliberately
loosened her garments and lay down upon her bed, first to sob like that
little child she remembered, and afterwards to think, until the world
came and knocked at her door and bade her come out of herself and earn
money.
CHAPTER XIII.
The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to Crooked lane is hardly ours
to examine. It must have been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand
involved certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, but of
exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually cloistered, whatever its
other latitude. Among them was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult
enough to make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so _voyant_
in the Church Militant, by a mere fighting soul without such straps and
buttons as might compel recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible
to know how far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty--the priestly
horizon is perhaps not wholly free from mirage--or to what extent he
confessed it an indulgence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire
than he could altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not
desert her post. The idea had an element of imitation oddly personal; he
could not bear to reflect upon it.
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