But Nelly was choosing the path that suited her own need, and in the spiritual world, the humblest means may be the best. It was when she was cooking for her nuns that some of St. Teresa's divinest ecstasies came upon her! Not that there was any prospect of ecstasy for Nelly Sarratt. She seemed to herself to be engaged in a kind of surgery--the cutting or burning away of elements in herself that she had come to scorn. Hester, who was something of a saint herself, came near to understanding her. Cicely could only wonder. But Hester perceived, with awe, a _fierceness_ in Nelly--a kind of cruelty--towards herself, with which she knew well, from a long experience of human beings, that it was no use to argue. The little, loving, easy-going thing had discovered in her own gentleness and weakness, the source of something despicable--that is, of her own failure to love George as steadfastly and truly as he had loved her. The whole memory of her marriage was poisoned for her by this bitter sense that in little more than a year after she had lost him, while he was actually still alive, and when the law even, let alone the highest standards of love, had not released her, she had begun to yield to the wooing of another man. Perhaps only chance, under all the difficult circumstances of her intimacy with Farrell, had saved her from a shameful yielding--from dishonour, as well as a broken faith. 'What had brought it about?'--she asked herself. And she asked it with a desperate will, determined to probe her own sin to the utmost. 'Soft living!'--was her own reply--moral and physical indolence. The pleasure of being petted and spoiled, the readiness to let others work for her, and think for her, what people called her 'sweetness!' She turned upon it with a burning hatred and contempt. She would scourge it out of herself. And then perhaps some day she would be able to think of George's last faint words with something else than remorseful anguish--_ love you, sweetheart!--I love you, sweetheart!'_ During the three weeks, however, that she was with Hester, she was very silent. She clung to Hester without words, and with much less than her usual caressingness. She found--it was evident--a certain comfort in solitary walks, in the simple talk of Mrs. Tyson, and 'Father Time,' who came to see her, and scolded her for her pale cheeks with a disrespectful vigour which brought actually a smile to her eyes. Tommy was brought over to see her; and she sat beside him, while he lay on the floor drawing Hoons and Haggans, at a great rate, and brimful of fresh adventures in 'Jupe.' But he was soon conscious that his old playfellow was not the listener she had been; and he presently stole away with a wistful look at her.