Any such appeal would have fallen flat on her ears and destroyed
its own hopes. But she was a woman to the very last drop of her
blood. She could not be induced to love Ratcliffe, but she might be
deluded into sacrificing herself for him. She atoned for want of
devotion to God, by devotion to man.
She had a woman's natural tendency towards asceticism,
self-extinction, self-abnegation. All through life she had made
painful efforts to understand and follow out her duty. Ratcliffe
knew her weak point when he attacked her from this side. Like all
great orators and advocates, he was an actor; the more effective
because of a certain dignified air that forbade familiarity.
He had appealed to her sympathy, her sense of right and of duty, to
her courage, her loyalty, her whole higher nature; and while he
made this appeal he felt more than half convinced that he was all
he pretended to be, and that he really had a right to her devotion.
What wonder that she in her turn was more than half inclined to
admit that right. She knew him now better than Carrington or
Jacobi knew him. Surely a man who spoke as he spoke, had noble
instincts and lofty aims? Was not his career a thousand times more
important than hers? If he, in his isolation and his cares, needed
her assistance, had she an excuse for refusing it? What was there
in her aimless and useless life which made it so precious that she
could not afford to fling it into the gutter, if need be, on the bare
chance of enriching some fuller existence?
Chapter VIII
OF all titles ever assumed by prince or potentate, the proudest is
that of the Roman pontiffs: "Servus servorum Dei"--"Servant of the
servants of God.
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