’It is a sad, sad end to what might have been a life of usefulness and honour.  I have thought so often of the parable of the talents; only I fear this case is worse.  His poor mother!  I wonder if I could write to her!  Yet I hardly know how to.’

‘Is this a—­a wicked woman, mother?’ Adela asked falteringly.

Mrs. Waltham shook her head and sighed.

‘My love, don’t you see that she is an actress?’

’But if all actresses are wicked, how is it that really good people go to the theatre?’

’I am afraid they oughtn’t to.  The best of us are tempted into thoughtless pleasure.  But now I don’t want you to brood over things which it is a sad necessity to have to glance at.  Read your chapter, darling, and get to bed.’

To bed—­but not to sleep.  The child’s imagination was aflame.  This scarlet woman, this meteor from hell flashing before the delighted eyes of men, she, then, had bound Hubert for ever in her toils; no release for him now, no ransom to eternity.  No instant’s doubt of the news came to Adela; in her eyes imprimatur was the guarantee of truth.  She strove to picture the face which had drawn Hubert to his doom.  It must be lovely beyond compare.  For the first time in her life she knew the agonies of jealousy.

She could not shed tears, but in her anguish she fell upon prayer, spoke the words above her breath that they might silence that terrible voice within.  Poor lost lamb, crying in the darkness, sending forth such piteous utterance as might create a spirit of love to hear and rescue.

Rescue—­none.  When the fire wasted itself, she tried to find solace in the thought that one source of misery was stopped.  Hubert was married, or would be very soon, and if she had sinned in loving him till now, such sin would henceforth be multiplied incalculably; she durst not, as she valued her soul, so much as let his name enter her thoughts.  And to guard against it, was there not a means offered her?  The doubt as to what love meant was well-nigh solved; or at all events she held it proved that the ‘love’ of the marriage service was something she had never yet felt, something which would follow upon marriage itself.  Earthly love had surely led Hubert Eldon to ruin; oh, not that could be demanded of her!  What reason had she now to offer against her mother’s desire?  Letty’s arguments were vain; they were but as the undisciplined motions of her own heart.  Marriage with a worthy man must often have been salvation to a rudderless life; for was it not the ceremony which, after all, constituted the exclusive sanction?

Mutimer, it was true, fell sadly short of her ideal of goodness.  He was an unbeliever.  But might not this very circumstance involve a duty?  As his wife, could she not plead with him and bring him to the truth?  Would not that be loving him, to make his spiritual good the end of her existence?  It was as though a great light shot athwart her darkness.  She raised herself in bed, and, as if with her very hands, clung to the inspiration which had been granted her.  The light was not abiding, but something of radiance lingered, and that must stead her.