That book indeed had for her a deep personal significance.

To think of it at all, was to be carried to the past, to feel for the hundredth time the thrill of change and new birth.
When she joined them in Rome, in mid-winter, she had found Manisty struggling with the first drafts of it,--full of yeasty ideas, full also of doubts, confusions and discouragements.

He had not been at all glad to see his half-forgotten cousin--quite the contrary.

As she had reminded him, she had suffered much the same things at his hands that Miss Foster was likely to suffer now.

It made her laugh to think of his languid reception of her, the moods, the silences, the weeks of just civil acquaintanceship; and then gradually, the snatches of talk--and those great black brows of his lifted in a surprise which a tardy politeness would try to mask:--and at last, the good, long, brain-filling, heart-filling talks, the break-down of reserves--the man's whole mind, its remorses, ambitions, misgivings, poured at her feet--ending in the growth of that sweet daily habit of common work--side by side, head close to head--hand close to hand .-- Eleanor Burgoyne lay still and motionless in the soft dusk of the old room, her white lids shut--Lucy Foster thought her asleep .-- He had said to her once, quoting some Frenchman, that she was 'good to consult about ideas.' Ah well!--at a great price had she won that praise.
And with an unconscious stiffening of the frail hands lying on the arms of the chair, she thought of those bygone hours in which she had asked herself--'what remains ?' Religious faith ?--No!--Life was too horrible! Could such things have happened to her in a world ruled by a God ?--that was her question, day and night for years.