As soon as the ponderous broadcloth back had turned the corner of Love Lane and was lost in that strong-moving stream, Mulcaster Road, she made up her mind that she would not go up to tea on Sunday afternoon. It was not that he really cared whether she went or not; had he done so he would have asked her sooner. Maybe his conscience was pricking him a bit, but he was not one to be much troubled in that way. In any case let it hurt him--so much the better if it did. This was a matter in which she would like him to be hurt as he had never been hurt before. Here again, however, her father had an unfair advantage. If she stayed away on Sunday she might punish him a little--and even that was doubtful--but she would certainly punish her mother far more. And she had not the slightest wish to do that. She was sorry for her mother, whose sins of omission sprang from weakness of character. Nature had placed her in a very different category. She had fought this tyrant as hard as it was in her to fight any one, but she was one of nature's underlings whose lot was always to be trampled on. Alas, if Melia didn't turn up on Sunday it was her mother who would suffer. And it was a matter in which she had suffered too much already. Melia had no particular affection now remaining for her mother; she even despised her for being so poor a creature, but at least her only crime was weakness and it was hardly fair that she should endure more than was necessary. Melia's was rather a masculine nature in some ways; at any rate her father and she had one trait in common. They had a sense of justice. Hence she was now on the horns of a dilemma. It was not until Sunday itself, after morning service at Saint George's, that the decision was finally made. And then fortified by Mr. Bontine, a clergyman for whom Melia had a regard, she decided much against her inclination to go up to The Rise in the afternoon. It was a reluctant decision, made in soreness of heart; the only satisfaction to be got out of it would arise from the dubious process which the reverend gentleman described as "conquest of self."