not say that she liked living with her father in Dulwich, nor did she look forward to giving singing lessons, and yet that was what she was going to do.  She strove to distinguish her soul; it seemed flying before her like a bird, making straight for some goal which she could not distinguish.  She could distinguish its wings in the blue air, and then she lost sight of them; then she caught sight of them again, and they were then no more than a tremulous sparkle in the air.  Suddenly the vision vanished, and she found herself face to face with herself—­her prosaic self which she had known always, and would know until she ceased to know everything.  She was here in the Wimbledon Convent, and Owen was in London waiting for her.  She knew she never would live with him again.  But how would she finally separate herself from him?  How would it all come about?  She could imagine herself yielding, but if she did, it would not last a week.  Her life would be unendurable, and she would have to send him away.  For it is not true that Tannhaeuser goes back to Venus.  He who repents, he who had once felt the ache and remorse of sin, may fall into sin again, but he quickly extricates himself; his sinning is of no long duration!  It was the casual sin that she dreaded; at the bottom of her heart she knew that she would never live a life of sin again.  But she trembled at the thought of losing the perfect peace and happiness which now reigned in her heart, even for a few hours.  Her face contracted in an expression of terror at the thought of finding herself again involved in the anguish, revolt and despair which she had endured in Park Lane.  She recalled the moments when she saw herself vile and loathsome, when she had turned from the image of her soul which had been shown to her.  Then, to rid herself of the remembrance, she thought of the joy she had experienced that morning at hearing in the creed that God’s kingdom shall never pass away.  Her soul had kindled like a flame, and she had praised God, crying to herself, “Thy kingdom shall last for ever and ever.”  It had seemed to her that her soul had acquired kingship over all her faculties, over all her senses, for the time being it had ruled her utterly; and so delicious was its subjection that she had not dared to move lest she should lose this sweet peace.  Her lips had murmured an Our Father, but so slowly that the Sanctus bell had rung before she had finished it.  Nothing troubled her, nothing seemed capable of troubling her, and the torrent of delight which had flowed into and gently overflowed her soul had intoxicated and absorbed her until it had seemed to her that there was nothing further for her to desire.

She remembered that when Mass was over she had risen from her knees elated, feeling that she had prayed even as the nuns prayed, and she had retired to her room, striving to restrain her looks and thoughts so that she might prolong this union with God.