Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/180

 look for any real movement, religious or social, until after—the crash.’

Her uncle did not reply, and little more was said between them until they got out at their station. The two elder ladies were sitting up for them, and were curious to hear, not about the subject of discussion, but about Cardinal Power personally. But Lesbia and her uncle were not up to further conversation, and in a few minutes all were in their bedrooms.

The short summer night turned into dawn, and the renewed rumble of a vehicle here and there, the chirp of town sparrows in the sooty trees, a street cry in the distance, as the grey glimmer grew on, showed that London was waking up to its stiff, dismal Sunday; still in his solitary drawing-room, with the gas burning faintly over his head, with his elbows resting upon the table and his face buried in his hands, sat the Roman Catholic prelate, lost in thought. For three hours he had hardly changed his attitude; at last he rose and moved slowly to the door, muttering,—‘Madness, madness! the idea of getting bewitched like this by a visionary young girl!’

But that did not end the matter.