But she was one of those who regarded all discomfort as meritorious, as in some way adding something to her claim for heaven.

Self-scourging with rods as a penance, was to her thinking a papistical ordinance most abominable and damnatory; but the essence of the self-scourging was as comfortable to her as ever was a hair-shirt to a Roman Catholic enthusiast.

So she went and sat apart in a dark distant pew, dressed in black and deeply veiled, praying, not it is to be feared, that John Caldigate might be a good husband to her girl, but that he, as he made his way downward to things below, might not drag her darling with him.

That only a few can be saved was the fact in all her religion with which she was most thoroughly conversant.

The strait way and the narrow gate, through which only a few can pass! Were they not known to all believers, to all who had a glimmering of belief, as an established part of the Christian faith, as a part so established that to dream even that the gate would be made broad and the way open would be to dream against the Gospel, against the very plainest of God's words?
If so,--and she would tell herself at all hours that certainly, certainly, certainly so it was,--then why should she trouble herself for one so little likely to come in the way of salvation as this man who was now robbing her of her daughter?
If it was the will of the Almighty,--as it clearly was the will of the Almighty,--that, out of every hundred, ninety and nine should perish, could she dare now to pray more than for one?
Or if her prayers were wider must they not be inefficacious?
Yes;--there had been the thief upon the cross! It was all possible.