Now Mark began to write with assiduity. Catherine busied herself with her household duties, with the garden and with charities in the neighbouring Parish. Her mother's rather hysterical beliefs lost their hysteria in her, at this period, and were softened and rendered large hearted. Catherine's sympathy with the world was indeed a living thing, not simply a fine idea. While Mark was shut up every morning with his writing she visited the poor, sat by the sick, and played with the village children. The Parish--this came out forcibly at her trial,--grew to love her. She was the prettiest Lady Bountiful. The impress made upon her by her mother was visible in all this. For Mrs. Ardagh, rigid, melancholy as she was sometimes, was genuinely charitable, genuinely dutiful. If she adored the forms of religion she loved also its essence,--the doing of good. In these many mornings Catherine was like her mother--improved. But in the evenings she no longer resembled Mrs. Ardagh, but rather, in a degree, echoed her father, and responded to his vehement, if furtive, teachings. For in the evenings Mark read to her what he had written during the day and discussed it with her in all its bearings. He recognised the clear quickness of Catherine's intellect. Yet she very soon noticed that he was exceedingly inflexible with regard to his work. He liked to discuss, he did not like to alter, it. One night, when he had finished the last completed chapter, he laid down the manuscript and said, "Well, Kitty?" Catherine was lying on a couch near the open French window. She did not speak until Mark repeated, "Well?" Then she said, "I think that far the finest chapter of your book----" Mark smiled triumphantly. "But it seems to me terribly immoral," she finished. "Oh, that's all right, dear. So long as it is properly worked out, inevitable." "It teaches----" "Nothing, Kitty--nothing. It merely describes what is." "But surely it may do harm." "Not if it is truly artistic. And you think----" "It that? Yes, I do. But, Mark, art is not all." "Your father would say so." "My father--yes." "And he is right. I neither inculcate nor do I condemn. I only produce, or try to produce, a work of art. You admire the chapter? You think it truly dramatic?" "Indeed I do--that's just why I am afraid of it." "Little timorous bird." He came over to the sofa and kissed her tenderly. She shivered. She thought his lips had never been dry and cold like that before.