Her uncle, Father Arlworth, helped Domini by his support and counsel in
this critical period of her life, and Lord Rens in time ceased from the
endeavour to carry his child with him as companion in his tragic journey
from love and belief to hatred and denial. He turned to the violent
occupations of despair, and the last years of his life were hideous
enough, as the world knew and Domini sometimes suspected. But though
Domini had resisted him she was not unmoved or wholly uninfluenced by
her mother's desertion and its effect upon her father. She remained a
Catholic, but she gradually ceased from being a devout one. Although
she had seemed to stand firm she had in truth been shaken, if not in
her belief, in a more precious thing--her love. She complied with the
ordinances, but felt little of the inner beauty of her faith. The effort
she had made in withstanding her father's assault upon it had exhausted
her. Though she had had the strength to triumph, at the moment, a
partial and secret collapse was the price she had afterwards to pay.
Father Arlworth, who had a subtle understanding of human nature, noticed
that Domini was changed and slightly hardened by the tragedy she had
known, and was not surprised or shocked.
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