they were among the only "evidences" of religion a critical mind allowed itself--the most striking signs of something "greater than we know" working among the dust and ugliness of our common day. Attack wealth as wealth, possession as possession, and civilisation is undone. But bring the force of the social conscience to bear as keenly and ardently as you may, upon the separate activities of factory and household, farm and office; and from the results you will only get a richer individual freedom, one more illustration of the divinest law man serves--that he must "die to live," must surrender to obtain. Such at least was Maxwell's persuasion; though as a practical man he admitted, of course, many limitations of time, occasion, and degree. And long companionship with him had impressed the same faith also on Marcella. With the natural conceit of the shrewd woman, she would probably have maintained that her social creed came entirely of mother-wit and her own exertions--her experiences in London, reading, and the rest. In reality it was in her the pure birth of a pure passion. She had learnt it while she was learning to love Aldous Raeburn; and it need astonish no one that the more dependent all her various philosophies of life had become on the mere personal influence and joy of marriage, the more agile had she grown in all that concerned the mere intellectual defence of them. She could argue better and think better; but at bottom, if the truth were told, they were Maxwell's arguments and Maxwell's thoughts. So that when this particular agitation began, and he grew restless in his silent way, she grew restless too. They took down the old worn portfolios of Hallin's papers and letters, and looked through them, night after night, as they sat alone together in the great library of the Court. Both Marcella and Aldous could remember the writing of many of these innumerable drafts of Acts, these endless memoranda on special points, and must needs try, for love's sake, to forget the terrible strain and effort with which a dying man had put them together. She was led by them to think of the many workmen friends she had made during the year of her nursing life; while he had remembrances of much personal work and investigation of his own, undertaken during the time of his under-secretaryship, to add to hers. Another Liberal government was slipping to its fall--if a Conservative government came in, with a possible opening in it for Aldous Maxwell, what then? Was the chance to be seized? One May twilight, just before dinner, as the two were strolling up and down the great terrace just in front of the Court, Aldous paused and looked at the majestic house beside them. "What's the good of talking about these things while we live _there_?" he said, with a gesture towards the house, half impatient, half humorous. Marcella laughed. Then she sprang away from him, considering, a sudden brightness in her eye. She had an idea.