She waited again, disentangling her mind from all clinging or vague recollections. “This man, Féodor Dimitrius, interested me at one time,” she said. “His utter selfishness and callous absorption in his own studies moved me almost to pain. Now he does not interest me at all. His mother is kind,--very simple--very stupid and well-meaning--but I could not stay with her for long. Who else must I remember?” Suddenly she laughed. “Pa and Ma!” she exclaimed--“I must not forget _them_! Those dear, respectable parents of mine, who only cared for me as long as I was an interesting object to _themselves_, and found me ‘in the way’ when their interest ceased! Flighty Pa! Wouldn’t he just love to be rejuvenated and turned out as a sort of new Faustus, amorous and reckless of everybody’s feelings--but his own! Oh, yes, I mustn’t forget Pa! I’m young enough to wear white now!--I’ll go and see him as soon as I get back to England--before Ma’s best mourning gown grows rusty!” She laughed again, the most enchanting dimples lightening her face as mirth radiated from her lips and eyes--then all at once she became serious, almost stern, and stood up as though lifted erect by some thought which impelled action. One hand clenched involuntarily. “Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve!” she said, in slow tones of emphatic scorn--“Especially the Honourable! I must not forget _him_!--or his fat wife!--or his appallingly hideous and stupid children! I must look at them all!--and not only must I look at _them_--they must look at _me_!” Her hand relaxed,--her eyes, limpid and lustrous, turned again towards the open window and moonlit summer night. “Yet--is vengeance worth while?” she mused--“Vengeance on a mote--a worm--a low soul such as that of the man I once almost worshipped? Yes!--the gods know it _is_ worth while to punish a liar and traitor! When the world becomes unclean and full of falsehood a great war is sent to purge its foulness,--when a man destroys a life’s happiness it is just that his own happiness should also be destroyed.” She had come to the conclusion of her meditations, and seeing the hour was ten o’clock, she opened her door and put the untouched little supper-table with all its delicacies outside in the entresol to be cleared away; then locking herself in for the night, prepared to go to bed. It was now that a sudden thrill of doubt quivered through her beautiful “new” organisation,--the nervous idea that perhaps she would not be able to pray! She took herself severely to task for this thought. “All things are of God!” she said, aloud--“Whatever science has made of me I can be nothing without His will. To Him belong the sun and air, the light and fire!--to Him also _I_ belong, and to Him I may render thanks without fear.” She knelt down and uttered the familiar “Our Father” in slow, soft tones of humility and devotion. To anyone who could have watched her praying thus, she would have seemed