The fine theories of universal conduct in which she had been indulging narrowed themselves down to her own life and to sternest, commonest reality.  Christianity is never a quality that can be abstracted from the individual and looked upon as having duties of its own.

She fought against the knowledge that she liked him so well; the thought of being his wife was the thought of a sacrifice that appalled her.  A convent cell would not have appeared to her half so far removed from all that belongs to the pride of life; and lives there anyone who has so wholly turned from that hydra-headed delight as not to shrink, as from some touch of death, from fresh relinquishment?  Her pulses stirred to those strains of life’s music that call to emulation and the manifold pomps of honour; and, whatever might be the reality, in her judgment the wife of Alec Trenholme must renounce all that element of interest in the world for ever.  Our sense of distinction poises its wings on the opinion of men; and, as far as she had learnt this opinion, a saint or a nun (she knew it now, although before she had not thought it) had honourable part in life’s pageantry, but not the wife of such as he.  The prospect in her eyes was barren of the hope that she might ever again have the power to say to anyone, “I am better than thou.”

It did not help her that at her initiation into the Christian life she had formally made just this renunciation, or that she had thought that before now she had ratified the vow.  The meaninglessness of such formulas when spoken is only revealed when deepening life reveals their depths of meaning.  She asked, in dismay, if duty was calling her to this sacrifice by the voice of love in her heart.  For that Love who carries the crown of earthly happiness in his hand was standing on the threshold of her heart like a beggar, and so terrible did his demand seem to her that she felt it would be easy to turn him away.

“I,” she said to herself, “I, who have preached to others, who have discoursed on the vanity of ambition—­this has come to teach me what stuff my glib enthusiasm is made of.  I would rather perjure myself, rather die, rather choose any life of penance and labour, than yield to my own happiness and his, and give up my pride.”

She arrayed before her all possible arguments for maintaining the existing social order; but conscience answered, “You are not asked to disturb it very much.”  Conscience used an uncomfortable phrase—­“You are only asked to make yourself of no reputation.”  She cowered before Conscience.  “You are not even asked to make yourself unhappy,” continued Conscience; and so the inward monitor talked, on till, all wearied, her will held out a flag of truce.

Most women would have thought of a compromise, would have, said, “Yes, I will stoop to the man, but I will raise him to some more desirable estate”; but such a woman was not Sophia Rexford.  She scorned love that would make conditions as much as she scorned a religion that could set its own limits to service.  For her there was but one question—­Did Heaven demand that she should acknowledge this love?  If so, then the all-ruling Will of Heaven must be the only will that should set bounds to its demand.