Lady Sunningdale struggled to a sitting attitude on the bed. Several French books flopped to the ground, and were instantly worried by the dogs: _Zó’hár_ and _A Rebours_ flew in gnawed fragments about the room. Martin agreed with Lady Sunningdale in the view she took of Helen’s conduct, but he felt bound to defend his sister against so wild an attack. “Anyhow, she’s doing a difficult thing because she thinks it right,” he said. “Give her credit for the difficulty.” “Difficult?” cried Lady Sunningdale. “There is no merit in doing a difficult thing just because it’s difficult. I might just as well try to stand on my head in the drawing-room and say to my wondering guests, ‘Admire me, please. Though foolish, this is difficult, and is only accomplished by prayer and fasting.’ Is that profane? I think it must be, because my father was a Nonconformist, and whenever I say anything without thinking, it is nearly sure to be a reminiscence of my unhappy childish days, and comes out of the Bible. But it doesn’t prove that a thing is the least worth doing because it is difficult. She is standing on her head, then? And in a parsonage, too!” “Yes, it amounts to that,” said Martin. “But with a moral purpose.” There was a discreet tap at the door and Hortense entered with tea. “Ah, muffins,” said Lady Sunningdale, in a mollified tone. “The under-piece, please, Martin. How delicious! But, though I am not cynical, I always a little distrust moral purposes. If you do a thing with a moral purpose, it usually means that you do it because if you didn’t you would be uncomfortable inside. Good people are such cowards,--they are afraid of a little pain in their consciences. To avoid that they go and act in some foolish, antiquated manner, and every one says, ‘What a saint!’” Then, out of all this nebulousness, like the gathering clouds of a thunder-storm, there leaped a sudden flash, like lightning, and rather like genius. “She is doing sacrifice to an ideal she doesn’t fully believe in,” she said. “Helen doesn’t believe in certain things as your father does. Else she would never marry Frank at all. She would have screamed loudly for help when he asked her, instead of saying ‘Yes.’ Her sacrifice, therefore, isn’t quite sincere.” Then a sort of confusing roar of thunder followed, marring the sharp conclusiveness of the lightning. “I cannot bear seeing people making a mess of their lives,” she said, “and it is such a pleasure to see them make a really clean job of them. Yes. Why continue poking round in a parsonage, when you have made up your mind to go away? It is like ordering the carriage to go to the station, and then, for no reason, saying that you will go by the next train. She has shattered the happy parsonage life, and is feebly trying to pick up the bits, instead of ringing the bell and leaving the Room. It is silly.” “Ah, Helen is not silly,” said her brother.