And as for Isabel, she had to pass through this valley of darkness alone. Anthony was in London; and even if he had been with her could not have helped her under these circumstances; her father was dead--she thanked God for that now--and Mistress Margaret seemed absorbed in her sister's grief. And so the girl fought with devils alone. The arguments for Catholicism burned pitilessly clear now; every line and feature in them stood out distinct and hard. Catholicism, it appeared to her, alone had the marks of the Bride, visible unity, visible Catholicity, visible Apostolicity, visible Sanctity;--there they were, the seals of the most High God. She flung herself back furiously into the Protestantism from which she had been emerging; there burned in the dark before her the marks of the Beast, visible disunion, visible nationalism, visible Erastianism, visible gulfs where holiness should be: that system in which now she could never find rest again glared at her in all its unconvincing incoherence, its lack of spirituality, its adulterous union with the civil power instead of the pure wedlock of the Spouse of Christ. She wondered once more how she dared to have hesitated so long; or dared to hesitate still. On the theological side intellectual arguments of this kind started out, strong and irrefutable; her emotional drawings towards Catholicism for the present retired. Feelings might have been disregarded or discredited by a strong effort of the will; these apparently cold phenomena that presented themselves to her intellect, could not be thus dealt with. Yet, strangely enough, even now she would not throw herself resolutely into Catholicism: the fierce stimulus instead of precipitating the crisis, petrified it. More than once she started up from her knees in her own dark room, resolved to awaken the nun and tell her she would wait no longer, but would turn Catholic at once and have finished with the misery of suspense: and even as she moved to the door her will found itself against an impenetrable wall.