At first Mrs. Clarke wandered slowly about the church, without any purpose other than that of gathering to herself some of its atmosphere.  During the last few days she had been feeling really tormented.  Dion had once said she looked punished.  Now he had made her feel punished.  And she sought a moment of peace.  It could not come to her from mysticism, but it might come to her from great art, which suggests to its votaries mystery, the something beyond, untroubled and shiningly serene.

Presently Mrs. Clarke felt the peace of Santa Sophia, and she felt it in a new way, because she had recently suffered, indeed was suffering still in a new way; she felt it as something desirable, which might be of value to her, if she were able to take it to herself and to fold it about her own life.  Had she made a mistake in living perilously through many years?  Her mind went to the woman who had abandoned Dion and entered a Sisterhood to lead a religious life.  She seldom thought about Rosamund except in relation to Dion.  She had scarcely known her, and since her first few interviews with Dion in this land of the cypress he had seldom mentioned his wife.  She neither liked, nor actively disliked, Rosamund, whose tacit rejection of her acquaintance had not stirred in her any womanly hatred; for though she was a ruthless woman she was not venomous towards other women.  She did not bother about them enough for that.  But now she considered that other woman with whom she had shared Dion Leith, or rather who, not knowing it doubtless, had shared Dion Leith with her.  And she wondered whether Rosamund, in her Sisterhood, was happier than she was in the world.  In the Sisterhood there must surely be peace—­monotony, drudgery, perhaps, but peace.

Santa Sophia, with its vast spaces, its airy dome, its great arches and galleries, its walls of variegated marble, its glittering mosaics and columns of porphyry, to-day made her realize that in her life of adventure and passion she was driven, as if by a demon with a whip, and that her horrible situation with Dion was but the culmination of a series of horrible situations.  She had escaped from them only after devastating battles, in which she had had to use all her nervous energy and all her force of will.  Was it worth while?  Was the game she was always playing worth the candles she was always burning?  Would it not be wiser to seek peace and ensue it?  As she drove to Santa Sophia she had longed fiercely to be free so that she might begin again; might again have adventures, might again explore the depths of human personalities, and satisfy her abnormal curiosities and desires.  Now she was full of unusual hesitation.  Suppose she did succeed in getting rid of Dion by going to England, suppose her prayer—­she had not offered it up yet, but she was going to offer it up in a moment—­to the Unknown God received a favorable answer, might it not be well for her future happiness if she retired from the passionate life, with its perpetual secrecies, and intrigues, and lies, and violent efforts, into the life of the ideal mother, solely devoted to her only child?