From an acute consciousness of herself as an individual, Mary passed to a conception of the scheme of things in which, as a human being, she must have her share.

She half held a vision; the vision shaped and dwindled.

She wished she had a pencil and a piece of paper to help her to give a form to this conception which composed itself as she walked down the Charing Cross Road.

But if she talked to any one, the conception might escape her.

Her vision seemed to lay out the lines of her life until death in a way which satisfied her sense of harmony.