She went then with Janet to the shops--she, and her sixty pounds, gripped tight in brittle ten-pound notes in her purse. At that time she was still staying on at Kew, still attending her office in King Street; but at both places she had given notice to leave, and in a week's time would be free. Her first intimation to Janet of all that had occurred and all that was to follow, was made, as usual, one night, when the darkness hid her face, and she could only tell by the sound of Janet's breathing what effect her story might have. When she had finished, Janet made use of that remark--justified in her case--which every prophet, false or true, utters at one time or another-- "Didn't I tell you so?" But then she went on, and they had talked far into the night; and at every moment, when doubt or regret seized and shook Sally with a quivering remorse, Janet laughed at her fears. "You've got the best bargain in the world," she exclaimed. "You want a man's love--you've got it--haven't you? And yet you're free--as free as air. If you should tire--" Sally laughed bitterly. "Very well, then, if he should tire, you're your own mistress. All this caging of wild birds seems to me to be futile. Morals? Oh, morals be hanged! Are you going to call yourself immoral because the man has no great respect for matrimony?" "Yes; but I have." "You have! That's only because you were dragged up in a rectory, just outside the church door. I can't understand you. You've shaken off your belief in lots of things--you don't believe in the actual divinity of Christ--yet you cling to an antiquated sacrament that dates back long before the time of a man whose statement that he was the actual Son of God you're prepared to doubt. It's only because you labour under the misapprehension--as nearly everybody does--that marriage is a convenience to a woman. It's the inconvenience of the thing that makes the morality or the immorality in your mind. You're only a conventionalist like everybody else-you're not a moralist." Yet, notwithstanding all these arguments of Janet's, there were dark moments during that week before she left Kew, when all the force of dogma, all the waves of conventionality, beat against her breast; but it was her faith in love that held her to the end; just as his faith in the dogma itself, had held the Rev. Samuel Bishop to the teachings of his Church. Love, she made the high altar of her worship; to that, unconsciously, she offered all prayers, made all sacrifice. These dark moments hung heavy in her heart so long as they were present; but one meeting with Traill was sufficient to drive them in a body from her mind--gloomy phantoms of imagination which, in the night, have vivid reality, and with the first welcome break of morning are stricken out of sight.