True, she had not grown up in actual ignorance of the questions beginning to agitate the world, but hitherto she had regarded them, as it were, from an infinite distance: they had not penetrated to her own sphere. She could regard them in perspective, and moralise upon them in an abstract fashion totally distinct from that which confronted her, now that they had in a sense intruded into her very home, and risen up in altogether unexpected proportion before her eyes. Calm as she appeared to the eyes of those about her, remote and aloof as Eustace felt her to be, dwelling in a world of her own, and hardly awake to the throbbing life of that other world of which he was a member, she was in reality far more aware of its pulsating life than he ever dreamed, and far more perplexed by the problems of the times than he as yet suspected. Pity and love for the humble and poor had been instilled into Bride’s heart by her mother from her earliest years, and it was a lesson not likely to be ignored now that she was left so lonely and desolate in her palatial home. Towards her father she felt a deep and reverential affection and compassion, and they had drawn a very little nearer together during this time of common sorrow; but the habits of a lifetime are seldom broken through, even when there is willingness to break them, and the Duke found himself unable to open his heart to his young daughter, as he had learned to do to his gentle wife, even when he was conscious that if the effort could be made it would be abundantly rewarded. He was gentle towards her, and more tender than he had ever been in his life before, but there was no impulse of confidence between them. It was just as hard for Bride to try to speak to him out of her heart (as she had been wont to do to her mother) as for him to cast off his reserve before her; so that when perplexities arose within her, the girl had to fight them out alone, and increasingly hard did she find the battle as day by day fresh thoughts and problems presented themselves before her mental vision. Mr. St. Aubyn might have helped her, but she was timid of seeking him out. She felt towards him a deep and reverential affection. She had always hung upon his words when he visited her mother, and the two talked together long and earnestly of the coming crisis in the world’s history of which both were keenly conscious, and for which both were preparing themselves in different measure. But the girl had never opened her own heart to the clergyman, or indeed to any person except her mother, and she did not know how to make the first advance now, although feeling often in sore need of guidance and help.