When she had gone, Evelyn sat thinking, her head leaned on her hand, her eyes fixed on the distant garden, seeing life from afar, strange and distant, like reflections in still waters.  She could see distant figures in St. Peter’s walk, tending the crosses and the statues of the Virgin placed in nooks, or hanging on the branches.  Some four or five nuns were playing at ball on the terrace, and in the plaintive autumn afternoon, there was something extraordinarily touching in their simple amusement; and she had, perforce, to feel how much wiser was their childishness than the vanity of the world.

Ulick had said that their adventure was the same, only their ways were different.  He had said that he sought God in art, while she sought him in dogma.  But if she accepted dogma, it was only as a cripple accepts a crutch, Catholicism was essential to her, without it she could not walk; but while conforming to dogma, it seemed possible to transcend its narrowness, and to attach to every petty belief a spiritual significance.  It is right that we should acquiesce in these beliefs, for they are the symbols by which the faith was kept alive and handed down.  God leads us by different ways, and though we may prefer to worship God in the open air, we should not despise him who builds a house for worship.  The Real Being is all that we are sure of, for He is in our hearts, the rest is as little shadows.  Ulick had quoted an Eastern mystic—­’He that sees himself sees God, and in him there is neither I nor thou.’

And, reflecting on the significance of these words, she turned with pensive fingers the leaves of The Way of Perfection.

But she was going back to London on Monday!  In London she would meet Owen and all her former life.  She knew in a way how she was going to escape him.  But her former life was everywhere.  She got up and walked about the room, then she stood at the window, her hands held behind her back.  She was sorely tried, and felt so weak in spirit that she was tempted, or fancied that she was tempted, to go away with Owen in the Medusa.  Or she might tell him that she would marry him, and so end the whole matter.  But she knew that she would do neither of these things.  She knew that she would sacrifice Owen and her career as an opera singer so that she might lead a chaste life.  Yet a life of prayer and chastity was not natural to her; her natural preferences were for lovers and worldly pleasures, but she was sacrificing all that she liked for all that she disliked.  She wondered, quite unable to account for her choice to herself.  Her life seemed very mad, but, mad or sane, she was going to sacrifice Owen and her career.  She might sing at concerts, but she did not think such singing would mean much to her and she thought of the splendid successful life that lay before her if she remained on the stage.  Again she wondered at her choice, seeking in herself the reason that impelled her to do what she was doing.  She could