“We have talked it over again,” said Paul, “and we have decided to take this step.”

He paused and watched the listener’s face eagerly, glancing quickly away as soon as she looked up.

“And you still wish me to break it to Maud, and in the way you said?”

“If you will.—­But I do so wish you would let me know your own thoughts about this.  You have so much claim to be considered.  Maud is in reality yours far more than she is ours.  Will it—­do you think now it will really be for our own happiness?  Will the explanation you are able to give be satisfactory to her?  What will be her attitude towards us?  You know her character—­you understand her.”

“If the future could be all as calm as the past year has been,” said Miss Bygrave, “I should have nothing to urge against your wishes.”

“And this will contribute to it,” exclaimed Enderby.  “This would give Emily the very support she needs.”

Miss Bygrave looked into his face, which had a pleading earnestness, and a deep pity lay in her eyes.

“Let it be so,” she said with decision.  “I myself have much hope from Maud’s influence.  I will write and tell her not to renew her engagement, and she will be with us at the end of September.”

“But you will not tell her anything till she comes?”

“No.”

Miss Bygrave lived in all but complete severance from the world.  When Maud Enderby was at school, she felt strongly and painfully the contrast between her own home life and that of her companions.  The girl withdrew into solitary reading and thinking; grew ever more afraid of the world; and by degrees sought more of her aunt’s confidence, feeling that here was a soul that had long since attained to the peace which she was vainly seeking.

But it was with effort that Miss Bygrave brought herself to speak to another of her form of faith.  After that Christmas night when she addressed Maud for the first time on matters of religion, she had said no second word; she waited the effect of her teaching, and the girl’s spontaneous recurrence to the subject.  There was something in the very air of the still, chill house favourable to ascetic gravity.  A young girl, living under such circumstances, must either pine away, eating her own heart, or become a mystic, and find her daily food in religious meditation.

Only when her niece was seventeen years old did Miss Bygrave speak to her of worldly affairs.  Her own income, she explained, was but just sufficient for their needs, and would terminate upon her death; had Maud thought at all of what course she would choose when the time for decision came?  Naturally, only one thing could suggest itself to the girl’s mind, and that was to become a teacher.  To begin with, she took subordinate work in the school where she had been a pupil; later, she obtained the engagement at Dr. Tootle’s.