functions of the heart. "There is no organic disease yet," said Dr.
Sibson, "but there soon will be, unless you can completely change your
manner of life." Such a change was not possible, and I grew rapidly
worse. The same bad adviser who had before raised the difficulty of "what
will Society say?" again interfered, and urged that pressure should be
put on me to compel me at least to conform to the outward ceremonies of
the Church, and to attend the Holy Communion. This I was resolved not to
do, whatever might be the result of my "obstinacy ", and the result was
not long in coming.

I had been with the children to Southsea, to see if the change would
restore my shattered health, and stayed in town with my mother on my
return under Dr. Sibson's care. Very skilful and very good to me was Dr.
Sibson, giving me for almost nothing all the wealthiest could have bought
with their gold, but he could not remove all then in my life which made
the re-acquiring of health impossible. What the doctor could not do,
however, others did. It was resolved that I should either resume
attendance at the Communion, or should not return home; hypocrisy or
expulsion--such was the alternative; I chose the latter.

A bitterly sad time followed; my dear mother was heartbroken; to her,
with her wide and vague form of Christianity, loosely held, the intensity
of my feeling that where I did not believe I would not pretend belief,
was incomprehensible. She recognised far more fully than I all that a
separation from my home meant for me, and the difficulties which would
surround a young woman not yet six-and-twenty, living alone. She knew how
brutally the world judges, and how the mere fact that a woman is young
and alone justifies any coarseness of slander. Then, I did not guess how
cruel men and women could be, but knowing it from eleven years'
experience, I deliberately say that I would rather go through it all