Mark—­not because she is afraid, not because her vast possessions appear the least insecure.  And the action would be far more noble just because, at the moment of renunciation, the world would, for the first time, suspect her guilt.  To Mark it seemed now the crowning touch of mercy that the criminal should be allowed to drink deep of the chalice.  “Her own affair”—­that was what the dying mother had said of the unfortunate child to whom she offered so gross a temptation.

And in the depths of his mind there was the conviction that it was a particular truth as to this individual soul, that not only would the heroic be the only antagonist to the base, but that some such moral revolution alone could be the beginning of cleansing of what had become foul, and the driving out of the noxious and the vile.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

NO SHADOW OF A CLOUD

It was in the evening, and Edmund was waiting in Rose’s drawing-room until she should come back from a meeting of one of her charitable committees.

He was walking up and down the room with a face at once very grave and very alert.  Even his carriage during the last few weeks had seemed to Rose to have gained in firmness and dignity, and perhaps she was right.  Nor had she failed to notice that one or two small, straight pieces of grey hair could now be seen near the temples.  He looked a little older, a little more brisk, a little more firm, and distinctly more cheerful since his reverses.  It is no paradox to speak of cheerfulness in sorrow, or to say that the whole nature may be happier in grief than in the days of apparent pleasure.  It is not only in those who have acquired deep religious peace that this may be true, for even in gaining energy and a balance in natural action, there may be happiness amidst pain.

Rose came in without seeing that anyone was in the room, and gave a start when she saw the tall figure by the window.  The evening light showed him a little grey, a little worn in appearance, a little more openly kindly in the dark eyes.  Something that she had fancied dim and clouded lately—­only once or twice, not always—­now shone in his face with its full brightness.

“Has anything happened, Edmund?  Have you come to tell me anything?”

He came across the room to her and took her hand in silence, and then said: 

“You look tired.  Have you had tea?”

“Oh, never mind tea,” she answered.  “Do tell me!  Seriously, something has happened?”

“It is nothing of any consequence—­nothing that need disturb you in the least.  It is only about my own stupid affairs, and, on the whole, it is very good news.  I have just come from the Foreign Office, and they have told me there that I am to have that job in India, and that the sooner I am ready to start the better.”