She tried, in a pitiable way, to rebuff temptation by taking the sole means at hand of ending these desperate reflections. In reality she took the most cogent means of rendering temptation more potent. She tightened its black clutch on her soul; she went upstairs and talked with her mother. Mrs. Twining had been securely convalescent some time ago. She had passed through a complicated and dangerous illness; she had given Death odds, yet won with him. She was still subject to those attacks of fatigue which are inevitable with one who has proved victor in so grim a wrestle. But she had once more gained a very firm foothold on that solidity which bounds one known side, at least, of the valley of the shadow. She intended, in a physical sense, to live a good many years longer; her freshening vitality was like that of a fire in a forest, which has stretched an arm of flame across a bare space, at the risk of not reaching it, but in the end has caught a mighty supply of woodland fuel. Claire found her stretched quite luxuriously on a lounge, with a little table beside her, which held the remains of a hearty repast. She had the traditional vast appetite of the recovering invalid. She had devoured enough to have sunk a hearty person of average digestion into abysses of dyspepsia. She had enjoyed her meal very much. It had appeared to her as an earnest of many similar joys. She promptly began a series of her old characteristic sarcasms and slurs as soon as Claire appeared. Mingled with them was an atmosphere of odious congratulation--a sort of verbal patting on the back--which her daughter found even more baneful than her half-latent sneers. She was thoroughly refreshed; her food (mixed with some admirable claret) had gone straight to the making of bodily repairs. She had never had anything so fine and wholesome in the hospital, though after the patronage of Mrs. Lee she had been supplied with not a few agreeable dainties. The temporary result was that she had become in a great measure her real self. Claire said very little. She did a large amount of listening. She had never known her mother not to be without a grudge of some sort. It brought back the past with a piercing vividness, now, while she sat and heard. The vision of a pale, refined face, lit by soft, dark-blue eyes, rose before her, and the memory of many a wanton assault, many a surreptitious wound, appealed to her as well. Her father had stood it all so bravely--he had been such a gentleman through it all! _She_ had stood it only with a sturdy, rebellious disapproval through many of the years that preceded his death. She stood it, now, with a weary tranquillity. When she went away from her mother, these were her parting words:--