For no mere affection for Delia Blanchflower would have influenced her, at the time when Delia, writing to tell her of the approaching death of Sir Robert, implored her to come and share her life. "You know I shall have money, dearest Gertrude,"--wrote Delia--"Come and help me to spend it--for the Cause." And for the sake of the Cause,--which was then sorely in want of money--and only for its sake, Gertrude had consented. She was at that time rapidly becoming one of the leading spirits in the London office of the "Daughters," so that to bury herself, even for a time, in a country village, some eighty miles from London, was a sacrifice. But to secure what seemed likely to be some thousands a year from a willing giver, such a temporary and modified exile had appeared to her worth while; and she had at once planned a campaign of "militant" meetings in the towns along the South Coast, by way of keeping in touch with "active work." But, in the first place, the extraordinary terms of Sir Robert's will had proved far more baffling than she and Delia had ever been willing to believe. And, in the next place, the personality of Mark Winnington had almost immediately presented itself to Gertrude as something she had never reckoned with. A blustering and tyrannical guardian would have been comparatively easy to fight. Winnington was formidable, not because he was hostile, resolutely hostile, to their whole propaganda of violence; that might only have spurred a strong-willed girl to more passionate extremes. He was dangerous,--in spite of his forty years--because he was delightful; because, in his leisurely, old-fashioned way, he was so loveable, so handsome, so inevitably attractive, Gertrude, looking back, realised that she had soon perceived--vaguely at least--what might happen, what had now--as she dismally guessed--actually happened. The young, impressionable creature, brought into close contact with this charming fellow--this agreeable reactionary--had fallen in love! That was all. But it was more than enough. Delia might be still unconscious of it herself. But this new shrinking from the most characteristic feature of the violent policy--this new softness and fluidity in a personality that when they first reached Maumsey had begun already to stiffen in the fierce mould of militancy--to what could any observer with eyes in their head attribute them but the influence of Mark Winnington--the daily unseen presence of other judgments and other ideals embodied in a man to whom the girl's feelings had capitulated?