So she took stock of such things as, whatever befell, she felt that she would have a right to take away with her from Cloverlea; it seemed to her that, since God had opened her eyes to her actual situation, He would forgive her for , on the Sabbath evening, what He had shown her was a work of necessity. A pathetic business that stocktaking was, and a queer one, and not a very heavy one either.  
She began with the money. She concluded that such cash as her father had given her for her own separate and private use she might still call her own, and use as her own. Had she been with a sum of any magnitude she would have hesitated; for this young woman was a Don Quixote in petticoats, and would rather starve than eat food which she even fancied belonged to others; but she was not dealing with a sum of any magnitude. Her father had always made her a generous allowance, of which she had always made a generous use; regarding herself as, in a sense, her father's almoner, she used far the larger part of it in works of charity. Since she left school it had been his custom to give her, four times a year, a sum of one hundred and twenty-five pounds, always in gold. It had been one of his that he had never given her either cheques or bank-notes, but always sovereigns. One of the quarterly sums had always been handed to her during the first week in April; she had been expecting it when her father had been taken ill. As a matter of fact, it was her hundred and twenty-five sovereigns, plus two more, which had formed that little heap of gold which was on the study table when Elaine Harding first adventured through the window. So, as that little heap had never found its way to her, all she actually was what was left from last quarter--and the first three months of the year always were such expensive months. During the winter there was apt to be so much want and suffering; sometimes she found it hard to make both ends meet, even though she spent scarcely anything on herself at all. However, that winter quarter there had been something over; that something represented her entire fortune, nearly nine pounds; to be exact, eight pounds fourteen and eightpence. Even the most might have suffered her to go out to face the world with that. Especially as beyond that Nora had very little of a portable nature which she considered she would be in regarding as her own, except her clothes.
 
Among the other things to which he had objected Donald Lindsay included jewellery. He wore none himself; had he had his way he would have called no man an acquaintance who did. He disliked to see jewellery even on a woman. On an elderly woman he it bad enough; like the cynic he was, he held that the average elderly woman very properly felt that she was only worth the net value of what she had on her. On a girl, to his thinking, it was impossible; if ever he encountered, under his own roof, young women who were, as they fancied, by products of the jeweller's art, he was apt to make such plain-spoken comments that Nora always endeavoured to warn her girl acquaintances to put aside their while, at any rate, her father was about. Nora herself had only had four pieces of jewellery in her life. One was a plain gold watch, which her father had given her when she was at school, which she then wore attached to a plain black ribbon; another was a gold locket, in which was her father's portrait, which she had worn on the same black ribbon. The other two articles had been presents from Robert Spencer--her engagement ring, and another locket, in which was his portrait. These she had returned to him on the previous day, together with his letters. So that all the jewellery she now had was the gold watch and the locket with the portrait of her father. These, she , came in the same category as the eight pounds fourteen and eightpence; she was entitled to regard them as her very own.
 
Her wardrobe presented difficulties. She had heaps of pretty dresses; quantities of all sorts of pretty clothes; the puzzle was, what to take and what to leave. She knew, from experience, that if her garments were turned into cash they would not fetch a great deal, however much they might have cost, or however little they might have been worn; so that if she took all her clothes she was aware that she would not be depriving her of an sum of money. It was the difficulty of selection which troubled her. Obviously elaborate and evening dresses ill with a fortune of eight pounds fourteen and eightpence, which represented both capital and income; in that sense the daintier and prettier they were, the more they were. Yet--she loved her pretty frocks; only a woman could understand how hard it seemed to her to have to part from them. With them were entwined so many associations; she wore this one on that never-to-be-forgotten night when Robert first asked her to be his wife; that when he slipped the engagement ring upon her finger; how pretty she had thought it! how she had kissed it when she was alone! She blushed at the memory.
 
After all, those were considerations which reached back to the life with which she had done for ever. It was quite another sort of life which was in front of her; she must be equipped for that. Three Or four plain, substantial dresses would be sufficient; the rest--those triumphs of the dressmaker's art--she was not likely to require garments of that sort again, ever. So she packed the few clothes she thought she would require into a trunk, together with her Bible, her writing-case, and a few and ends; looking round the room, she decided that all her other things, which she had so treasured, must remain behind. She undressed, feeling as if she was undressing in a room peopled with ghosts, all of them memories of the many-sided Nora of the days which were gone; then, all radiant in her white , she knelt in prayer; supposing, as she poured all the dear, secret things which were in her heart, that she was a woman; but God, who heard her, knew that she was a child; and, as she prayed, He breathed peace into her soul; so that hardly, at last, was she between the sheets when she fell fast asleep.
 
And in her sleep she dreamed the dream which she had dreamed before; of her father, stealing timidly into her room, filled with a great to tell her something, which he would have given much that she should know, yet speechless. And to him the knowledge that he was dumb was agony, and to her; so that she put her arms about him, and whispered in his ear words which were meant to assist him in the efforts he was making to say what he so to tell her. But struggle as he might, speech would not come; until, all at once, in the exceeding bitterness of his grief he made her understand that, because he had been still so long, and so had sinned, God would not let him speak now; He would not forgive him for the opportunities he had wasted. her with his, she held him closer, crying--
 
"God will forgive you, father! God will forgive you!" and, with her own crying, she woke herself up, to find herself in the darkness, alone, and the sound of her own voice in her ears.
 ............