That seemed at first to be incredible. But she saw it so plainly that she could not even pretend to herself that she was deceived by some unusual play of light or combination of shadows. What she saw--was: Her husband had thrown off his allegiance to her and transferred his admiration, perhaps his affection, to the woman who had most deftly and delicately insulted her in the face of all her world. And he had done this with the most abominable publicity. That was what she saw in a clear light like the light of the East. That was what sent a lash across her temperament, scarring it perhaps, but waking it into all it could ever have of life. In each woman there is hidden a second woman, more fierce and tender, more evil and good, more strong and fervent than the woman who hides her in the ordinary hours of life; a woman who weeps blood where the other woman weeps tears, who strikes with a flaming sword where the other woman strikes with a willow wand. This woman now rose up in Lady Holme, rose up to do battle. The laughing, frivolous world was all unconscious of her. Lord Holme was unconscious of her. But she was at last fully conscious of herself. This woman remembered Robin Pierce’s odd belief and the light words with which she had chastised it. He had persistently kept faith in, and sought for, a far-away being. But she was a being of light and glory. His kernel of the husk was still a siren, but a siren with a heart, with an exquisite imagination, with a fragrance of dreams about her, a lilt of eternal music in her voice, the beaming, wonder of things unearthly in her eyes. Poor Robin! Lady Holme found it in her heart to pity him as she realised herself. But then she turned her pity aside and concentrated it elsewhere. The egoism of her was not dead though the hidden woman had sprung up in vivid life. Her intellect was spurred into energy by the suffering of her pride and of her heart. Memory was restless and full of the passion of recall.