And Molly was kneeling on her low window-seat, looking out at the same moon in a mood of joy that was transmuted half consciously into prayer by the alchemy of pure love.

CHAPTER XV

A POOR MAN’S DEATH

Early in October, Molly and Miss Carew took up their abode in a flat with quite large rooms and a pleasing view of Hyde Park.

August and September had been two of the healthiest and most normal months that Molly had ever spent or was likely ever to spend again.  The weeks between the rupture with the Delaport Greens and the journey to Switzerland had been trying, although it was undoubtedly much pleasanter to be Mrs. Carteret’s guest than it had ever been to be a permanent inmate of her house.

Molly—­thought Mrs. Carteret—­was restless, not inclined to morbid thoughts, and more gentle than of yore, but more nervous and fanciful.

It was not until after a fortnight abroad, after the revelation of mountains realised for the first time, that Molly had the courage to say to herself that she had been a fool during the visit to Aunt Anne.  Was it in the least likely that a man of Edmund Grosse’s kind would act romantically or hastily?  Of course not.  She had been as foolish as Mrs. Browning’s little Effie in dreaming that a lover might come riding over the Malcot hills on a July evening.

The girls with whom Molly had travelled were of a healthy, intellectual type, and Molly, under their influence, had grown to feel the worth of the higher side of Nature’s gifts.  And so, vigorous in mind and body, she had come to London in October, so she said, to study music.

Miss Carew was a little disappointed when Molly expressed lofty indifference as to who had yet come to London.  But that indifference did not last long when her friends of the season began to find her out.  Then Miss Carew surprised Molly by her excessive nervousness and shyness of new acquaintances.  “Carey” had always professed to love society, and had always been very carefully dressed in the fashion of the moment.  But, as a civilian may idealise warfare and be well read in tactics, and yet be unequal to the emergency when war actually raises its grisly head, so it was with poor Miss Carew.  She simply collapsed when Molly’s worldly friends, as she called them with envious admiration, swept into the room, garnished with wonderful hats and fashionable furs.  She had none of a Frenchwoman’s gift for ignoring social differences, and she had the uneasy pride that is rare in a Celt, although she had all a Celt’s taste for refinement and show and glitter.  Miss Carew sat more and more stiffly at the tea-table, until she confided frankly to Molly—­

“My dear, I am too old, and I am simply in the way.  It is just too late in my life, you see, after all the years of governess work.  Of course, if my beloved father had lived, I should never have been a governess.  But as it is, I think I need not appear when you have visitors, except now and then.”