Her conscience was a comparatively easy affair: even in a high fever, she had been able to justify herself to her own complete satisfaction. Hermione had a little manual of “Self-Examination” questions which always lay beside her bed, and she could go through the whole list with perfect confidence day or night. But did her father sufficiently believe in her? And was it worth while that he should? Hermione did not put these two questions to herself as crudely as this—she saw them, as she would have expressed it, “on a higher plane.” It was her duty to make her father realise that she was a power for good in the world, and he had not yet appeared to think so with sufficient conviction; if she had succeeded in convincing him, might she not, with him at her side, win moral successes upon a larger scale? Hermione told herself that she must not be ambitious about spiritual openings and she emptied her mind—with an effort of concentration and by the help of several ejaculatory prayers—of all memory of the house and garden in the Champs Elysées. But on the other hand she had been broken-hearted and helpful to young wives for several years; perhaps more was now asked of her. She could not, in justice to herself, change her ideal, but she might change the channel of her efforts. Perhaps Papa was right—he had distinctly spoken of a wider field—the time might have arrived for her to make fresh efforts. Papa was worldly, of course, and hideously astray if he expected her to give up her present situation for the sake of any material profit. But she had never intended to stay permanently with Elise and John, and her father was her first duty. They might live in Paris, which was dryer than London, and therefore, no doubt, more suitable for diabetics. Papa could not really care for Mambles or he would not have given it to John. Hermione was the person who really _ought_ to make a home for her father. Perhaps this was what he had always felt, and the singular tone of misinformed bitterness with which he had addressed her had been caused by a feeling of neglect. Hermione lay with her eyes shut, reconstructing the neglected past of Mr. Brett and the rose-coloured future with which she intended to present him. Yes—she was prepared to sacrifice Elise and John to give herself up to her ill and aged parent. The house in the Champs Elysées shot through her mind again, but would she have the physical strength to entertain properly? And how large was the garden? It was no use her undertaking what she could not carry through. Hermione had had a long career full of excitements, and even perils; but she had foreseen the excitements and been able as a rule to terminate any dangers which had arisen from them. But the night of her attack she had neither foreseen how ill she would be, nor been able to control it. A sensation which she had not roused in herself had frightened her. She had suddenly felt that something might happen to her which she could not prevent.