For her proud sincerity would not allow her to pretend to herself. What had happened to her? She felt the strangest lightness--as though some long restraint had broken down; a wonderful intermittent happiness, sweeping on her without reason, and setting the breath fluttering. It made her think of what an old Welsh nurse of her childhood had once told her of "conversion," in a Welsh revival, and its marvellous effects; how men and women walked on air, and the iron bands of life and custom dropped away. Then she rose impatiently, despising herself, and went downstairs again to try and help Gertrude. But the packing was done, the pony-cart was ordered, and in an hour more, Gertrude was gone. Delia was left standing on the threshold of the front door, listening to the sound of the receding wheels. They had parted in perfect friendliness, Gertrude with civil wishes for Weston's complete recovery, Delia with eager promises--"I shall soon come--_very_ soon!"--promises of which, as she now remembered, Gertrude had taken but little notice. But as she went back into the house, the girl had a queer feeling of catastrophe, of radical change. She passed the old gun-room, and looked in. All its brown paper bundles, its stacks of leaflets, its books of reference were gone; only a litter of torn papers remained here and there, to shew what its uses had been. And suddenly, a swell of something like exultation, a wild sense of deliverance, rushed upon her, driving out depression. She went back to the drawing-room, with little dancing steps, singing under her breath. The flowers wanted freshening. She went out to the greenhouse, and brought in some early hyacinths and violets till the room was fragrant. Some of them she took up to Weston, chatting to the patient and her nurse as she arranged them, with such sweetness, such smiles, such an abandonment of kindness, that both looked after her amazed, when, again, she vanished. What had become of the imperious absent-minded young woman of ordinary days? Delia lunched alone. And after lunch she grew restless. He must have received her letter at breakfast-time. Probably he had some tiresome meetings in the morning, but soon--soon-- She tried to settle to some reading. How long it was since she had read anything for the joy of it!--anything that in some shape or other was not the mere pemmican of the Suffrage Movement; dusty arguments for, or exasperating arguments against. She plunged into poetry--a miscellaneous volume of modern verse--and the new world of feeling in which her mind had begun to move, grew rich, and deep, and many-coloured about her. Surely--a sound at the gate! She sat up, crimson. Well?--she was going to make friends with her guardian--to bury the hatchet--for a whole fortnight at least. Only that. Nothing more--nothing--nothing!