She mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, while Elma turned aside, realising sadly that it was useless to prolong the discussion. Presently Geoffrey and his mother would arrive and then they would all consult together. Elma had not rehearsed her own share in the conversation; the all-important decision was in the last issue to be left to herself, and she had spoken the simple truth in saying that she wished above all things to do what was right. Her life's training had instilled the conviction that no happiness was possible at the cost of a sacrifice of principle. If she could be once convinced that it was wrong to marry Geoffrey Greville, she would give him up as unflinchingly as any martyr of old walked to the stake, but she must be convinced on the ground of principle alone! Pride, prejudice, convention, would pass her by, leaving her unshaken in her determination to marry the man she loved. At four o'clock the great landau from the Manor drove up to the gate, and from within the shrouded windows mother and daughter watched the groom jump lightly from his seat, to shield the grey froth of Madame's draperies as she stepped to the ground. To Mrs Ramsden the scene was an eloquent illustration of the world, the flesh and the devil; the world exemplified by the carriage with its handsome trappings, its valuable horses, and liveried attendants; the flesh by Madame--a picture of elegance in cloudy grey draperies, her silvery locks surmounted by a flower-wreathed toque, her cheeks faintly pink beneath the old lace veil--the devil!--it was a hard word to apply to the handsome, resolute young fellow who followed his mother up the gravel path, but at the moment Geoffrey Greville appeared in Mrs Ramsden's eyes as the destroyer of her happiness, the serpent who had brought discord into Eden! She was in truth an honest little Puritan in whose sight the good things of the world were but as snares and pitfalls. So far from feeling any pleasure in the thought that her daughter might one day reign as the great lady of the neighbourhood, the prospect filled her with unaffected dread, and the needle's eye had been quoted almost as frequently as the serpent's teeth, during the last week. She turned away from the window with a shudder of distress.