During the night that followed Mary slept little. She was engaged in trying to loosen and tear away those tendrils of the heart that had begun to climb and spread more than she knew. Toward the early dawn it seemed to her she heard slight sounds in her mother's room. But immediately afterward she fell asleep. The next day, Mary could not tell what had happened; but it was as though, in some inexplicable way, doors had been opened and weights lifted; as though fresh winds had been set blowing through the House of Life. Her mother seemed shaken and frail; Mary hovered about her with ministering tenderness. There were words begun and left unfinished, movements and looks that strangely thrilled and bewildered the younger woman. She had no key to them; but they seemed to speak of change--of something in her mother that had been beaten down, and was still faintly, pitifully striving. But she dared say nothing. They read, and wrote letters, and strolled as usual; till in the evening, while Mary was sitting by the water, Catherine came out to her and stood beside her, holding the local paper in her hand. "I see there is to be a meeting in the village next Friday--of the Reformers' League. Mr. Meynell is to speak." Mary looked up in amazement. "Yes?" "You would perhaps like to go. I will go with you." "Mother!" Mary caught her mother's hand and kissed it, while the tears sprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere--to do nothing--that gives you pain!" "I know that," said Catharine quietly. "But I--I should like to understand him." And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went back into the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of the woods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost in wonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let time show. The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date on which the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies and irregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting at Markborough. The meetings of the commission were held in the Library of the Cathedral, once a collegiate church of the Cistercian order. All trace of the great monastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for the Library and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from the Deanery to the north transept.