One afternoon she sat at tea at one of the little tables belonging to the outdoor restaurant near Victoria Gate, and essayed the difficult task of making up her own mind. In a limited sense the world was before her, but the very largeness of the choice made it the more difficult. If she could but think of something which interested... something for which she really cared! No answer came to the question, yet of a certainty she was happier under some conditions than others. Looking back over the blank stretch of days, there were hours which stood out from the rest, hours in which she had felt restful,--almost content. Mary lived those hours, trying to draw from them a conclusion. There were hours spent in the Park, not in the afternoon, but the morning, when it was comparatively empty. The rhododendrons were in full bloom in the beds near Rotten Row; she heard people say that they had never been finer than this year. There had been other hours in the Abbey, both during the services and after; there had been an afternoon on an excursion steamer plying up the river to Oxford; and a drive on the top of an omnibus on a misty night, when the lights twinkled in softened radiance, and the great buildings assumed a mysterious splendour. One by one, Mary recalled the hours, but the conclusion could not be found. Then suddenly her ears were opened to a woman's voice talking at the table next to her own. "Switzerland," she was saying. "Of course! As soon as I can run away. I am longing for the time to come. I have been there every summer for the last ten years, and if it rests with me, I shall go every year till I die. I've tried Norway, I've tried the Tyrol, but I've gone back to my old love, and I shall never wander again. Switzerland gives me what I need. I go there and feed upon it. It's the tonic that braces me up for another year of hard, ugly life." There was a moment's silence, then another voice asked: "But what exactly _do_ you feed on? What is the name of the tonic which helps you so much?" "Beauty!" said the woman deeply. The blood rushed to Mary's cheeks. She had found her clue! That word showed her the secret of her heart. All her life she had fed on prose; now unconsciously she was craving the tonic of beauty. It had been beauty in one form or another, which had brought her few hours of content. The next morning she packed her box, and took a ticket for Berne. CHAPTER TWENTY. BARRIERS.