Only when failing health shadowed the way before her did she begin to lose that confident carriage of the mind which, together with her profound materialism, had made worry and regret and apprehension things unknown to her.

Thus, when old but by no means senile, she learnt that disquiet of conscience, so common in our day, which has nothing to do with spiritual perceptiveness, but comes of habitual concentration on every-day cares and woes, on the life of the world as apart from that of the soul.

Through sleepless nights, Lady Ogram brooded over the contrast between her own exaltation and the hopeless level of the swinking multitude.

What should she do with her money?
The question perturbed her with a sense of responsibility which would have had no meaning for her in earlier years.

How could she best use the vast opportunity for good which lay to her hand?
Endless were the projects she formed, rejected, took up again.