Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in the night I wake with a start and see it all--all!" The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in her heart.
Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely, though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life in Hamley.

Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit had been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart and soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before.

And David and Hamley had come together.

The old impulses, dominated by a divine altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew not, reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not.

This man's career, the work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which, however she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in her life hereafter.