“Not quite six hours’ sleep that girl will get to-night,” mused Molly, “and then downstairs again and two hours’ work before the cook comes down to scold her.  What a life!”

But, after all, Molly had noticed the blush with which the girl had put a few violets in a little pot on the chimney-piece.  Was it quite sure that Miss Dexter’s life would be happier than that of the snorer on the bed, who smiled once or twice in her noisy sleep?

“There is happiness in this world after all,” mused Molly, soothed by thoughts of the past day, by the stillness on the face of the earth, and by a certain rest that came to her with all acts of kindness—­a certain lull to those activities of mind and instinct that constantly led her out of the paths of peace.

This was a sacred time of the night to Molly.  It was associated in her mind with the best hours she had ever lived, hours of sick nursing and devotion, hours of real use and help.  For months now she had been living entirely for herself, to fight her own battle and make her own way in a hostile world.  She had had much excitement and even real pleasure.  Her imagination had taken fire with the notion that she must assert herself or be crushed in the race of life.  Heavy ordinary people would find it hard to understand Molly’s strange idealisation of the glories of the kingdom of this world which she meant to conquer.  And if she were frustrated in her passion for worldly success, there were capacities in her which she as yet hardly suspected, but she did feel at times the stirrings of evil things, cruelty, revenge, and she hardly knew what else.  How could people understand her?  She shrank from understanding herself.

But to-night she knew the inspiration of another ideal; she recognised the possibility of aims in which self hardly counts.  There had been indeed a stir in the minds of all at Groombridge when they knew of the final step taken by the heir.  Molly, looking up at the great castle, on her homeward drive, with its massive towers and its most commanding position, had felt more and more impressed by an action on so big a scale.  It was impossible to be at Groombridge and not to feel the great and noble opportunities its possession must give any remarkable man; and the man who could give up such opportunities must be a very remarkable man indeed.  In Molly’s self-engrossed life it had something of the same effect as a great thunderstorm among mountains would have had in the physical order.

And to-night it came over her again, and she seemed to be listening to the echoes of a far vibrating sound.  And might there not be happiness for Mark Molyneux?  Might it not be happiness for herself to give up the wretched, uncomfortable fight that life so often seemed to be, and to let loose the Molly who could toil and go sleepless and be happy, if she could achieve any diminution of bodily pain in man or woman, child or beast?

The dawn lightened; one or two rabbits stirred in the bracken in the near park—­this was peace.  Then Molly smiled tenderly at the dawn.  There might come another solution in which life would be unselfish without such acute sacrifice, and in which evil possibilities would be starved for lack of temptation.  And all that was good would grow in the sunshine.