 than Mr.
Baske had been; it soon became evident that Mrs. Welland, who also aspired to
prominence in religious life, would be a formidable rival to the lady of Redbeck
House. On the occasion of some local meeting, Miriam felt this danger keenly;
she went home in dark mood, and the outcome of her brooding was the resolve in
question.
    She had not inherited all her husband's possessions; indeed, there fell to
her something less than half his personal estate. For a time, this had not
concerned her; now she was beginning to think of it occasionally with
discontent, followed by reproach of conscience. Like reproach did she suffer for
the jealousy and envy excited in her by Mrs. Welland's arrival. A general
uneasiness of mind was gradually induced, and the chapel-building project, with
singular confusion of motives, represented to her at once a worldly ambition and
a discipline for the soul. It was a long time before she spoke of it, and in the
interval she suffered more and more from a vague mental unrest.
    Letters were coming to her from Cecily. Less by what they contained than by
what they omitted, she knew that Cecily was undergoing a great change. Miriam
put at length certain definite questions, and the answers she received were
unsatisfactory, alarming. The correspondence became a distinct source of
trouble. Not merely on Cecily's account; she was led by it to think of the world
beyond her horizon, and to conceive dissatisfactions such as had never taken
form to her.
    Her physical health began to fall off; she had seasons of depression, during
which there settled upon her superstitious fears. Ascetic impulses returned, and
by yielding to them she established a new cause of bodily weakness. And the more
she suffered, the more intolerable to her grew the thought of resigning her
local importance. Her pride, whenever irritated, showed itself in ways which
exposed her to the ridicule of envious acquaintances. At length Bartles was
surprised with an announcement of what had so long been in her mind; a newspaper
paragraph made known, as if with authority, the great and noble work Mrs. Baske
was about to undertake. For a day or two Miriam enjoyed the excitement this
produced - the inquiries, the felicitations, the reports of gossip. She held her
head more firmly than ever; she seemed of a sudden to be quite re-established in
health.
    Another day or two, and she was lying seriously ill - so ill that her doctor
summoned aid from Manchester.
    What a distance between those memories, even the latest of
