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 at an end, but in each instance Louise had induced her to remain. Having yielded at first with a faint sense of guilt, Miriam had come through custom to accept her position with all its ambiguities. As Keble's activities increased, she had stepped into the breach and relieved him of many daily transactions, delighted at being able to offer a definite service for the cheque which was left on her dressing table every month. Keble ended by turning over to her his ledgers and most of his correspondence.

But her feeling of guilt recurred at moments when the house seemed to be an armed camp, with Keble and herself deep in their estimates; and Louise inciting Dare to phantastic metaphysical speculation. At such moments her mind persisted in criticizing Louise. It was not exactly that she lacked confidence in her, for Louise was in her own fashion surefooted and loyal. But Miriam was a little appalled at the extensity of the ground Louise could be surefooted on, the sweeping nature of her conception of loyalty. Louise, scorner of the ground, was all for steering in a direct line to her goal and ignoring the conventional railway routes whose zigzags were conditioned by topographical exigencies not pertinent to fliers. Her loyalty would not fail Keble, for she could cherish him in the spirit without subscribing to him in the letter. Louise's loyalty might be expressed in idioms which were not to be found in Keble's moral vocabulary. Just as there were some eternal truths which could be expressed more ade-