It was a relief to lose herself among them all and be of no account again.
In the corner behind Rhoda Vivian she and the Mad Hatter seemed to be clinging together more than ever in an ecstasy of isolation.
After all, above the turmoil of emotion a little tremulous, attenuated ideal was trying to raise its head.

Her duty.

She dimly discerned a possibility of deliverance, of purification from her sin.

Therefore she clung more desperately than ever to her post.

Seeing that she had served the system for five-and-twenty years, it was hard if she could not get from it a little protection against her own weakness, if she could not claim the intellectual support it professed to give.