"If I have not always done what I ought to have done in my life, it is

not for want of guidance and advice from others," said Hadria with a

smile and a sigh.

"You are giving everyone so much pain, Hadria. Do you never think of

that?"

There was another long pause. The two women sat opposite one another.

Miss Temperley's eyes were bent on the carpet; Hadria's on a patch of

blue sky that could be seen through a side street, opposite.

"If you would use your ability on behalf of your sex instead of against

it, Henriette, women would have cause to bless you, for all time!"

"Ah! if you did but know it, I _am_ using what ability I have on their

behalf," Miss Temperley replied. "I am trying to keep them true to their

noble mission. But I did not come to discuss general questions. I came

to appeal to your best self, Hadria."

"I am ready," said Hadria. "Only, before you start, I want you to

remember clearly what took place at Dunaghee before my marriage; for I

foresee that our disagreement will chiefly hang upon your lapse of

memory on that point, and upon my perhaps inconveniently distinct

recollection of those events."

"I wish to lay before you certain facts and certain results of your

present conduct," said Henriette.

"Very good. I wish to lay before you certain facts and certain results

of your past conduct."

"Ah! do not let us wrangle, Hadria."

"I don't wish to wrangle, but I must keep hold of these threads that you

seem always to drop. And then there is another point: when I talked of

leaving home, it was not _I_ who suggested that it should be for ever."

"I know, I know," cried Henriette hastily. "I have again and again

pointed out to Hubert how wrong he was in that, and how he gave you a

pretext for what you have done. I admit it and regret it deeply. Hubert

lost his temper; that is the fact of the matter. He thought himself

bitterly wronged by you."

"Quite so; he felt it a bitter wrong that I should claim that liberty of

action which I warned him before our marriage that I _should_ claim. He

made no objection _then_: on the contrary, he professed to agree with

me; and declared that he did not care what I might think; but now he

says that in acting as I have acted, I have forfeited my position, and

need not return to the Red House."

"I know. But he spoke in great haste and anger. He has made me his

_confidante_."

"And his ambassador?"

Henriette shook her head. No; she had acted entirely on her own

responsibility. She could not bear to see her brother suffering. He had

felt the quarrel deeply.

"On account of the stupid talk," said Hadria. "_That_ will soon blow

over."

"On account of the talk partly. You know his sensitiveness about

anything that concerns his domestic life. He acutely feels your leaving

the children, Hadria. Try to put yourself in his place. Would _you_ not

feel it?"

"If I were a man with two children of whom I was extremely fond, I have

no doubt that I should feel it very much indeed if I lost an intelligent

and trustworthy superintendent, whose services assured the children's

welfare, and relieved me of all anxiety on their account."

"If you are going to take this hard tone, Hadria, I fear you will never

listen to reason."

"Henriette, when people look popular sentiments squarely in the face,

they are always called hard, or worse. You have kept yourself thoroughly

informed of our affairs. Whose parental sentiments were gratified by the

advent of those children--Hubert's or mine?"

"But you are a mother."

Hadria laughed. "You play into my hands, Henriette. You tacitly

acknowledge that it was not for _my_ gratification that those children

were brought into the world (a common story, let me observe), and then

you remind me that I am a mother! Your mentor must indeed be slumbering.

You are simply scathing--on my behalf! Have you come all the way from

England for this?"

"You _won't_ understand. I mean that motherhood has duties. You can't

deny that."

"I can and I do."

Miss Temperley stared. "You will find no human being to agree with you,"

she said at length.

"That does not alter my opinion."

"Oh, Hadria, explain yourself! You utter paradoxes. I want to understand

your point of view."

"It is simple enough. I deny that motherhood has duties except when it

is absolutely free, absolutely uninfluenced by the pressure of opinion,

or by any of the innumerable tyrannies that most children have now to

thank for their existence."

Miss Temperley shook her head. "I don't see that any 'tyranny,' as you

call it, exonerates a mother from her duty to her child."

"There we differ. Motherhood, in our present social state, is the sign

and seal as well as the means and method of a woman's bondage. It forges

chains of her own flesh and blood; it weaves cords of her own love and

instinct. She agonizes, and the fruit of her agony is not even legally

hers. Name me a position more abject! A woman with a child in her arms

is, to me, the symbol of an abasement, an indignity, more complete, more

disfiguring and terrible, than any form of humiliation that the world

has ever seen."

"You must be mad!" exclaimed Miss Temperley. "That symbol has stood to

the world for all that is sweetest and holiest."

"I know it has! So profound has been our humiliation!"

"I don't know what to say to anyone so wrong-headed and so twisted in

sentiment."

Hadria smiled thoughtfully.

"While I am about it, I may as well finish this disclosure of feeling,

which, again I warn you, is _not_ peculiar to myself, however you may

lay that flattering unction to your soul. I have seen and heard of many

a saddening evidence of our sex's slavery since I came to this terrible

and wonderful city: the crude, obvious buying and selling that we all

shudder at; but hideous as it is, to me it is far less awful than this

other respectable form of degradation that everyone glows and smirks

over."

Miss Temperley clasped her hands in despair.

"I simply can't understand you. What you say is rank heresy against all

that is most beautiful in human nature."

"Surely the rank heresy is to be laid at the door of those who degrade

and enslave that which they assert to be most beautiful in human nature.

But I am not speaking to convince; merely to shew where you cannot count

upon me for a point of attack. Try something else."

"But it is so strange, so insane, as it seems to me. Do you mean to

throw contempt on motherhood _per se_?"

"I am not discussing motherhood _per se_; no woman has yet been in a

position to know what it is _per se_, strange as it may appear. No woman

has yet experienced it apart from the enormous pressure of law and

opinion that has, always, formed part of its inevitable conditions. The

illegal mother is hounded by her fellows in one direction; the legal

mother is urged and incited in another: free motherhood is unknown

amongst us. I speak of it as it is. To speak of it _per se_, for the

present, is to discuss the transcendental."

There was a moment's excited pause, and Hadria then went on more

rapidly. "You know well enough, Henriette, what thousands of women there

are to whom the birth of their children is an intolerable burden, and a

fierce misery from which many would gladly seek escape by death. And

indeed many _do_ seek escape by death. What is the use of this eternal

conspiracy of silence about that which every woman out of her teens

knows as well as she knows her own name?"

But Henriette preferred to ignore that side of her experience. She

murmured something about the maternal instinct, and its potency.

"I don't deny the potency of the instinct," said Hadria, "but I do say

that it is shamefully presumed upon. Strong it obviously must be, if

industrious cultivation and encouragements and threats and exhortations

can make it so! All the Past as well as all the weight of opinion and

training in the Present has been at work on it, thrusting and alluring

and coercing the woman to her man-allotted fate."

"_Nature_-allotted, if you please," said Henriette. "There is no need

for alluring or coercing."

"Why do it then? Now, be frank, Henriette, and try not to be offended.

Would _you_ feel no sense of indignity in performing a function of this

sort (however noble and so on you might think it _per se_), if you knew

that it would be demanded of you as a duty, if you did not welcome it as

a joy?"

"I should acknowledge it as a duty, if I did not welcome it as a joy."

"In other words, you would accept the position of a slave."

"How so?"

"By bartering your womanhood, by using these powers of body, in return

for food and shelter and social favour, or for the sake of so-called

'duty' irrespective of--perhaps in direct opposition to your feelings.

How then do you differ from the slave woman who produces a progeny of

young slaves, to be disposed of as shall seem good to her perhaps

indulgent master? I see no essential difference."

"I see the difference between honour and ignominy," said Henriette.

Hadria shook her head, sadly.

"The differences are all in detail and in circumstance. I am sorry if I

offend your taste. The facts are offensive. The bewildering thing is

that the facts themselves never seem to offend you; only the mention of

them."

"It would take too long to go into this subject," said Henriette. "I can

only repeat that I fail to understand your extraordinary views of the

holiest of human instincts."

"_That_ catch-word! And you use it rashly, Henriette, for do you not

know that the deepest of all degradation comes of misusing that which is

most holy?"

"A woman who does her duty is not to be accused of misusing anything,"

cried Miss Temperley hotly.

"Is there then no sin, no misuse of power in sending into the world

swarms of fortuitous, poverty-stricken human souls, as those souls must

be who are born in bondage, with the blended instincts of the slave and

the master for a proud inheritance? It sounds awful I know, but truth is

apt to sound awful. Motherhood, as our wisdom has appointed it, among

civilized people, represents a prostitution of the reproductive powers,

which precisely corresponds to that other abuse, which seems to most of

us so infinitely more shocking."

Miss Temperley preferred not to reply to such a remark, and the entrance

of little Martha relieved the tension of the moment. Henriette, though

she bore the child a grudge, could not resist her when she came forward

and put up her face to be kissed.

"She is really growing very pretty," said Henriette, in a tone which

betrayed the agitation which she had been struggling to hide.

Martha ran for her doll and her blue man, and was soon busy at play, in

a corner of the room, building Eiffel Towers out of stone bricks, and

knocking them down again.

"I don't yet quite understand, Henriette, your object in coming to

Paris." Hadria's voice had grown calmer.

"I came to make an appeal to your sense of duty and your generosity."

"Ah!"

"I came," Henriette went on, bracing herself as if for a great effort,

"to remind you that when you married, you entered into a contract which

you now repudiate."

Hadria started up, reddening with anger.

"I did no such thing, and you know it, Henriette. How do you _dare_ to

sit there and tell me that?"

"I tell you nothing but the truth. Every woman who marries enters, by

that fact, into a contract."

Miss Temperley had evidently regarded this as a strong card and played

it hopefully.

Hadria was trembling with anger. She steadied her voice. "Then you

actually intended to _entrap_ me into this so-called contract, by

leading me to suppose that it would mean nothing more between Hubert and

myself than an unavoidable formality! You tell me this to my face, and

don't appear to see that you are confessing an act of deliberate

treachery."

"Nonsense," cried Henriette. "There was nothing that any sane person

would have objected to, in our conduct."

Hadria stood looking down scornfully on her sister-in-law. She shrugged

her shoulders, as if in bewilderment.

"And yet you would have felt yourselves stained with dishonour for the

rest of your lives had you procured anything _else_ on false pretences!

But a woman--that is a different affair. The code of honour does not

here apply, it would seem. _Any_ fraud may be honourably practised on

_her_, and wild is the surprise and indignation if she objects when she

finds it out."

"You are perfectly mad," cried Henriette, tapping angrily with her

fingers on the arm of her chair.

"What I say is true, whether I be mad or sane. What you call the

'contract' is simply a cunning contrivance for making a woman and her

possible children the legal property of a man, and for enlisting her own

honour and conscience to safeguard the disgraceful transaction."

"Ah," said Henriette, on the watch for her opportunity, "then you admit

that her honour and conscience _are_ enlisted?"

"Certainly, in the case of most women. That enlistment is a masterpiece

of policy. To make a prisoner his own warder is surely no light stroke

of genius. But that is exactly what I refused to be from the first, and

no one could have spoken more plainly. And now you are shocked and

pained and aggrieved because I won't eat my words. Yet we have talked

over all this, in my room at Dunaghee, by the hour. Oh! Henriette, why

did you not listen to your conscience and be honest with me?"

"Hadria, you insult me."

"Why could not Hubert choose one among the hundreds and thousands of

women who would have passed under the yoke without a question, and have

gladly harnessed herself to his chariot by the reins of her own

conscience?"

"I would to heaven he _had_!" Henriette was goaded into replying.

Hadria laughed. Then her brow clouded with pain. "Ah, why did he not

meet my frankness with an equal frankness, at the time? All this trouble

would have been saved us both if _only_ he had been honest."

"My dear, he was in love with you."

"And so he thought himself justified in deceiving me. There is _indeed_

war to the knife between the sexes!" Hadria stood with her elbows on

the back of a high arm-chair, her chin resting on her hands.

"It is not fair to use that word. I tell you that we both confidently

expected that when you had more experience you would be like other women

and adjust yourself sensibly to your conditions."

"I see," said Hadria, "and so it was decided that Hubert was to pretend

to have no objections to my wild ideas, so as to obtain my consent,

trusting to the ponderous bulk of circumstance to hold me flat and

subservient when I no longer had a remedy in my power. You neither of

you lack brains, at any rate." Henriette clenched her hands in the

effort of self-control.

"In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, our forecasts would have come

true," she said. "I mean----"

"That is refreshingly frank," cried Hadria.

"We thought we acted for the best."

"Oh, if it comes to that, the Spanish Inquisitors doubtless thought that

they were acting for the best, when they made bonfires of heretics in

the market-places." Henriette bent her head and clasped the arms of the

chair, tightly.

"Well, if there be any one at fault in the matter, _I_ am the culprit,"

she said in a voice that trembled. "It was _I_ who assured Hubert that

experience would alter you. It was I who represented to him that though

you might be impulsive, even hard at times, you could not persist in a

course that would give pain, and that if you saw that any act of yours

caused him to suffer, you would give it up. I was convinced that your

character was good and noble _au fond_, Hadria, and I have believed it

up to this moment."

Hadria drew herself together with a start, and her face darkened. "You

make me regret that I ever had a good or a pitiful impulse!" she cried

with passion.

She went to the window and stood leaning against the casement, with

crossed arms.

Henriette turned round in her chair.

"Why do you always resist your better nature, Hadria?"

"You use it against me. It is the same with all women. Let them beware

of their 'better natures,' poor hunted fools! for that 'better nature'

will be used as a dog-chain, by which they can be led, like

toy-terriers, from beginning to end of what they are pleased to call

their lives!"

"Oh, Hadria, Hadria!" cried Miss Temperley with deep regret in her tone.

But Hadria was only roused by the remonstrance.

"It is cunning, shallow, heartless women, who really fare best in our

society; its conditions suit them. _They_ have no pity, no sympathy to

make a chain of; _they_ don't mind stooping to conquer; _they_ don't

mind playing upon the weaker, baser sides of men's natures; _they_ don't

mind appealing, for their own ends, to the pity and generosity of

others; _they_ don't mind swallowing indignity and smiling abjectly,

like any woman of the harem at her lord, so that they gain their object.

_That_ is the sort of 'woman's nature' that our conditions are busy

selecting. Let us cultivate it. We live in a scientific age; the fittest

survive. Let us be 'fit.'"

"Let us be womanly, let us do our duty, let us hearken to our

conscience!" cried Henriette.

"Thank you! If my conscience is going to be made into a helm by which

others may guide me according to their good pleasure, the sooner that

helm is destroyed the better. That is the conclusion to which you drive

me and the rest of us, Henriette."

"Charity demands that I do not believe what you say," said Miss

Temperley.

"Oh, don't trouble to be charitable!"

Henriette heaved a deep sigh. "Hadria," she said, "are you going to

allow your petty rancour about this--well, I will call it error of ours,

if you like to be severe--are you going to bear malice and ruin your own

life and Hubert's and the children's? Are you so unforgiving, so lacking

in generosity?"

"_You_ call it an error. _I_ call it a treachery," returned Hadria. "Why

should the results of that treachery be thrust on to _my_ shoulders to

bear? Why should _my_ generosity be summoned to your rescue? But I

suppose you calculated on that sub-consciously, at the time."

"_Hadria!_"

"This is a moment for plain speaking, if ever there was one. You must

have reckoned on an appeal to my generosity, and on the utter

helplessness of my position when once I was safely entrapped. It was

extremely clever and well thought out. Do you suppose that you would

have dared to act as you did, if there had been means of redress in my

hands, after marriage?"

"If I _did_ rely on your generosity, I admit my mistake," said Henriette

bitterly.

"And now when your deed brings its natural harvest of disaster, you and

Hubert come howling, like frightened children, to have the mischief set

straight again, the consequences of your treachery averted, by _me_, of

all people on this earth!"

"You are his wife, the mother of his children."

"In heaven's name, Henriette, why do you always run into my very jaws?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Why do you catalogue my injuries when your point is to deny them?"

Henriette rose with a vivid flush.

"Hadria, Hubert is one of the best men in England. I----"

"When have I disputed that?"

Hadria advanced towards Miss Temperley, and stood looking her full in

the face.

"I believe that Hubert has acted conscientiously, according to his

standard. But I detest his standard. He did not think it wrong or

treacherous to behave as he did towards me. But it is _that very fact_

that I so bitterly resent. I could have forgiven him a sin against

myself alone, which he acknowledged to be a sin. But this is a sin

against my entire sex, which he does _not_ acknowledge to be a sin. It

is the insolence that is implied in supposing it allowable for a man to

trick a woman in that way, without the smallest damage to his

self-respect, that sticks so in my throat. What does it imply as regards

his attitude towards all women? Ah! it is _that_ which makes me feel so

rancorous. And I resent Hubert's calm assumption that he had a right to

judge what was best for me, and even to force me, by fraud, into

following his view, leaving me afterwards to adjust myself with

circumstance as best I might: to make my bitter choice between

unconditional surrender, and the infliction of pain and distress, on

him, on my parents, on everybody. Ah, you calculated cunningly,

Henriette! I _am_ a coward about giving pain, little as you may now be

disposed to credit it. You have tight hold of the end of my chain."

Hadria was pacing restlessly up and down the room. Little Martha ran out

with her doll, and offered it, as if with a view to chase away the

perturbed look from Hadria's face. The latter stooped mechanically and

took the doll, smiling her thanks, and stroking the child's fair curls

tenderly. Then she recommenced her walk up and down the room, carrying

the doll carefully on her arm.

"Take care of dolly," Martha recommended, and went back to her other

toys.

"Yes, Henriette, you and Hubert have made your calculations cleverly.

You have advocates only too eloquent in my woman's temperament. You have

succeeded only too well by your fraud, through which I now stand here,

with a life in fragments, bound, chafe as I may, to choose between

alternative disasters for myself and for all of us. Had you two only

acted straightly with me, and kindly allowed me to judge for myself,

instead of treacherously insisting on judging for me, this knot of your

tying which you naïvely bring me to unravel, would never have wrung the

life out of me as it is doing now--nor would it have caused you and

Hubert so much virtuous distress."

Hadria recommenced her restless pacing to and fro.

"But, Hadria, _do_ be calm, _do_ look at the matter from our point of

view. I have owned my indiscretion." (Hadria gave a little scornful

cry.) "Surely you are not going to throw over all allegiance to your

husband on _that_ account, even granting he was to blame." Hadria

stopped abruptly.

"I deny that I owe allegiance to a man who so treated me. I don't deny

that he had excuses. The common standards exonerate him; but, good

heavens, a sense of humour, if nothing else, ought to save him from

making this grotesque claim on his victim! To preach the duties of wife

and mother to _me!_" Hadria broke into a laugh. "It is inconceivably

comic."

Henriette shrugged her shoulders. "I fear my sense of humour is

defective. I can't see the justice of repudiating the duty of one's

position, since there the position _is_, an accomplished fact not to be

denied. Why not make the best of it?"

"Henriette, you are amazing! Supposing a wicked bigamist had persuaded a

woman to go through a false marriage ceremony, and when she became aware

of her real position, imagine him saying to her, with grave and virtuous

mien, 'My dear, why repudiate the duties of your position, since there

your position _is_, an accomplished fact not to be denied?'"

"Oh, that's preposterous," cried Henriette.

"It's preposterous and it's parallel."

"Hubert did not try to entrap you into doing what was wrong."

"We need not discuss that, for it is not the point. The point is that

the position (be that right or wrong) was forced on the woman in both

cases by fraud, and is then used as a pretext to exact from her the

desired conduct; what the author of the fraud euphoniously calls

'duty.'"

"You are positively insulting!" cried Henriette, rising.

By this time, Hadria had allowed the doll to slip back, and its limp

body was hanging down disconsolately from her elbow, although she was

clutching it, with absent-minded anxiety, to her side, in the hope of

arresting its threatened fall.

"Oh, look at dolly, look, look!" cried Martha reproachfully. Hadria

seized its legs and pulled it back again, murmuring some consolatory

promise to its mistress.

"It is strange how you succeed in putting me on the defensive,

Henriette--I who have been wronged. A horrible wrong it is too. It has

ruined my life. You will never know all that it implies, never, never,

though I talk till Doomsday. Nobody will--except Professor Fortescue."

Henriette gave a horrified gesture. "I believe you are in love with that

man. _That_ is the cause of all this wild conduct."

Miss Temperley had lost self-control for a moment.

Hadria looked at her steadily.

"I beg your pardon. I spoke in haste, Hadria. You have your faults, but

Hubert has nothing to fear from you in that respect, I am sure."

"Really?" Hadria had come forward and was standing with her left elbow

on the mantel-piece, the doll still tucked under her right arm. "And you

think that I would, at all hazards, respect a legal tie which no feeling

consecrates?"

"I do you that justice," murmured Henriette, turning very white.

"You think that I should regard myself as so completely the property of

a man whom I do not love, and who actively dislikes me, as to hold my

very feelings in trust for him. Disabuse yourself of that idea,

Henriette. I claim rights over myself, and I will hold myself in pawn

for no man. This is no news either to you or to Hubert. Why pretend that

it is?"

Henriette covered her face with her hands.

"I can but hope," she said at length, "that even now you are saying

these horrible things out of mere opposition. I cannot, I simply

_cannot_ believe, that you would bring disgrace upon us all."

"If you chose to regard it as a disgrace that I should make so bold as

to lay claim to myself, that, it seems to me, would be your own fault."

Henriette sprang forward white and trembling, and clutched Hadria's arm

excitedly.

"Ah! you _could_ not! you _could_ not! Think of your mother and father,

if you will not think of your husband and children. You terrify me!"

Hadria was moved with pity at Henriette's white quivering face.

"Don't trouble," she said, more gently. "There is no thunderbolt about

to fall in our discreet circle." (A hideous crash from the overturning

of one of Martha's Eiffel Towers seemed to belie the words.)

Miss Temperley's clutch relaxed, and she gave a gasp of relief.

"Tell me, Hadria, that you did not mean what you said."

"I can't do that, for I meant it, every syllable."

"Promise me then at least, that before you do anything to bring misery

and disgrace on us all, you will tell us of your intention, and give us

a chance of putting our side of the matter before you."

"Of protecting your vested interests," said Hadria; "your right of way

through my flesh and spirit."

"Of course you put it unkindly."

"I will not make promises for the future. The future is quite enough

hampered with the past, without setting anticipatory traps and springes

for unwary feet. But I refuse this promise merely on general principles.

I am not about to distress you in that particular way, though I think

you would only have yourselves to blame if I _were_."

Miss Temperley drew another deep breath, and the colour began to return

to her face.

"So far, so good," she said. "Now tell me--Is there nothing that would

make you accept your duties?"

"Even if I were to accept what you call my duties, it would not be in

the spirit that you would desire to see. It would be in cold

acknowledgment of the force of existing facts--facts which I regard as

preposterous, but admit to be coercive." Henriette sank wearily into her

chair.

"Do you then hold it justifiable for a woman to inflict pain on those

near to her, by a conduct that she may think justifiable in itself?"

Hadria hesitated for a moment.

"A woman is so desperately entangled, and restricted, and betrayed, by

common consent, in our society, that I hold her justified in using

desperate means, as one who fights for dear life. She may harden her

heart--if she can."

"I am thankful to think that she very seldom _can_!" cried Henriette.

"Ah! that is our weak point! For a long time to come, we shall be

overpowered by our own cage-born instincts, by our feminine conscience

that has been trained so cleverly to dog the woman's footsteps, in man's

interest--his detective in plain clothes!"

"Of course, if you repudiate all moral claim----" began Henriette,

weakly.

"I will not insult your intelligence by considering that remark."

"Are you determined to harden yourself against every appeal?" Hadria

looked at her sister-in-law, in silence.

"Why don't you answer me, Hadria?"

"Because I have just been endeavouring, evidently in vain, to explain in

what light I regard appeals on this point."

"Then Hubert and the children are to be punished for what you are

pleased to call his fraud--the fraud of a man in love with you, anxious

to please you, to agree with you, and believing you too good and noble

to allow his life to be spoilt by this girl's craze for freedom. It is

inconceivable!"

"I fear that Hubert must be prepared to endure the consequences of his

actions, like the rest of us. It is the custom, I know, for the sex that

men call weaker, to saddle themselves with the consequences of men's

deeds, but I think we should have a saner, and a juster world if the

custom were discontinued."

"You have missed one of the noblest lessons of life, Hadria," cried Miss

Temperley, rising to leave. "You do not understand the meaning of

self-sacrifice."

"A principle that, in woman, has been desecrated by misuse," said

Hadria. "There is no power, no quality, no gift or virtue, physical or

moral, that we have _not_ been trained to misuse. Self-sacrifice stands

high on the list."

Miss Temperley shrugged her shoulders, sadly and hopelessly.

"You have fortified yourself on every side. My words only prompt you to

throw up another earthwork at the point attacked. I do harm instead of

good. I will leave you to think the matter over alone." Miss Temperley

moved towards the door.

"Ah, you are clever, Henriette! You know well that I am far better

acquainted with the weak points of my own fortifications than you can

be, who did not build them, and that when I have done with the defence

against you, I shall commence the attack myself. You have all the

advantages on your side. Mine is a forlorn hope:--a handful of Greeks at

Thermopylae against all the host of the Great King. We are foredoomed;

the little band must fall, but some day, Henriette, when you and I shall

be no more troubled with these turbulent questions--some day, these

great blundering hosts of barbarians will be driven back, and the Greek

will conquer. Then the realm of liberty will grow wide!"

"I begin to hate the very name!" exclaimed Henriette.

Hadria's eyes flashed, and she stood drawn up, straight and defiant,

before the mantel-piece.

"Ah! there is a fiercer Salamis and a crueller Marathon yet to be

fought, before the world will so much as guess what freedom means. I

have no illusions now, regarding my own chances, but I should hold it as

an honour to stand and fall at Thermopylae, with Leonidas and his

Spartans."

"I believe that some day you will see things with different eyes," said

Henriette.

The doll fell with a great crash, into the fender among the fire-irons,

and there was a little burst of laughter. Miss Temperley passed through

the door, at the same instant, with great dignity.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

As Hadria had foretold, she commenced the attack on herself as soon as

Henriette had departed, and all night long, the stormy inner debate was

kept up. Her mind never wavered, but her heart was rebellious. Hubert

deserved to pay for his conduct; but if we all had to pay for our

conduct to the uttermost farthing, that would be hard, if just. If

Hadria assumed the burden of Hubert's debt, it would mean what M.

Jouffroy had pointed out. Hubert's suffering would be only on account of

offended public opinion; hers--but then her parents would suffer as well

as Hubert. Round and round went the thoughts, like vast wheels, and when

towards morning, she dozed off a little, the wheels were still turning

in a vague, weary way, and as they turned, the life seemed to be crushed

gradually out of the sleeper.

Jouffroy came to enquire whether the decision had been made. He was in a

state of great excitement. He gave fervent thanks that Hadria had stood

firm.

"You do not forget my words, Madame?"

"I shall never forget them, Monsieur."

Henriette discreetly forbore to say anything further on the subject of

dispute. She waited, hopefully.

"Hubert has been troubled about the money that your father set apart, on

your marriage, as a contribution to the household expenses," she said,

one morning. "Your father did not place it all in your name."

"I know," said Hadria. "It is tied up, in some way, for the use of the

family. I have a small sum only in my own control."

"Hubert is now leaving half of it to accumulate. The other half has

still to go towards the expenses at the Red House. I suppose you

approve?"

"Certainly," said Hadria. "My father designed it for that purpose."

"But Hubert feared you might be running short of money, and wished to

send you some; but the trustees say it is against the conditions of the

trust."

"So I suppose."

"I wanted you to know about it, that is all," said Henriette. "Also, I

should like to say that though Hubert does not feel that he can ask you

to return to the Red House, after what has happened--he cannot risk your

refusing--yet I take it on myself to tell you, that he would only be too

glad if you would go back."

"Thank you, I understand."

Next morning, Henriette came with a letter in her hand.

"Bad news!" Hadria exclaimed.

The letter announced the failure of the Company. It was the final blow.

Dunaghee would have to be given up. Mrs. Fullerton's settlement was all

that she and her husband would now have to live upon.

Hadria sat gazing at the letter, with a dazed expression. Almost before

the full significance of the calamity had been realized, a telegram

arrived, announcing that Mrs. Fullerton had fallen dangerously ill.

The rest of that day was spent in packing, writing notes, settling

accounts, and preparing for departure.

"When--how are you going?" cried Madame Vauchelet, in dismay.

"By the night boat, by the night boat," Hadria replied hurriedly, as if

the hurry of her speech would quicken her arrival in England.

The great arches of the station which had appealed to her imagination,

at the moment of arrival, swept upward, hard and grey, in the callous

blue light. Hadria breathed deep. Was she the same person who had

arrived that night, with every nerve thrilled with hope and resolve? Ah!

there had been so much to learn, and the time had been so short.

Starting with her present additional experience, she could have managed

so much better. But of what use to think of that? How different the

homeward journey from the intoxicating outward flight, in the heyday of

the spring!

What did that telegram mean? _Ill; dangerously, dangerously._ The words

seemed to be repeated cruelly, insistently, by the jogging of the train

and the rumble of the wheels. The anxiety gnawed on, rising at times

into terror, dulling again to a steady ache. And then remorse began to

fit a long-pointed fang into a sensitive spot in her heart. In vain to

resist. It was securely placed. Let reason hold her peace.

A thousand fears, regrets, self-accusations, revolts, swarmed

insect-like in Hadria's brain, as the train thundered through the

darkness, every tumultuous sound and motion exaggerated to the

consciousness, by the fact that there was no distraction of the

attention by outside objects. Nothing offered itself to the sight except

the strange lights and shadows of the lamp thrown on the cushions of the

carriage; Henriette's figure in one corner, Hannah, with the child, in

another, and the various rugs and trappings of wandering Britons.

Everything was contracted, narrow. The sea-passage had the same sinister

character. Hadria compared it to the crossing of the Styx in Charon's

gloomy ferry-boat.

She felt a patriotic thrill on hearing the first mellow English voice

pronouncing the first kindly English sentence. The simple, slow, honest

quality of the English nature gave one a sense of safety. What splendid

raw material to make a nation out of! But, ah, it was sometimes dull to

live with! These impressions, floating vaguely in the upper currents of

the mind, were simultaneous with a thousand thoughts and anxieties, and

gusts of bitter fear and grief.

What would be the end of it all? This uprooting from the old home--it

wrung one's heart to think of it. Scarcely could the thought be faced.

Her father, an exile from his beloved fields and hills; her mother

banished from her domain of so many years, and after all these

disappointments and mortifications and sorrows! It was piteous. Where

would they live? What would they do?

Hadria fought with her tears. Ah! it was hard for old people to have to

start life anew, bitterly hard. This was the moment for their children

to flock to their rescue, to surround them with care, with affection,

with devotion; to make them feel that at least _some_thing that could be

trusted, was left to them from the wreck.

"Ah! poor mother, poor kind father, you were very good to us all, very,

very good!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Mrs. Fullerton's illness proved even more serious than the doctor had

expected. She asked so incessantly for her daughters, especially Hadria,

that all question of difference between her and Hubert was laid aside,

by tacit consent, and the sisters took their place at their mother's

bedside. The doctor said that the patient must have been suffering, for

many years, from an exhausted state of the nerves and from some kind of

trouble. Had she had any great disappointment or anxiety?

Hadria and Algitha glanced at one another. "Yes," said Algitha, "my

mother has had a lot of troublesome children to worry and disappoint

her."

"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor, nodding his head. "Well, now has come a

crisis in Mrs. Fullerton's condition. This illness has been incubating

for years. She must have undergone mental misery of a very acute kind,

whether or not the cause may have been adequate. If her children desire

to keep her among them, it will be necessary to treat her with the

utmost care, and to oppose her in _nothing_. Further disappointment or

chagrin, she has no longer the power to stand. There are complications.

Her heart will give trouble, and all your vigilance and forbearance are

called for, to avoid serious consequences. I think it right to speak

frankly, for everything depends--and always hereafter will depend--on

the patient's being saved as much as possible from the repetition of any

former annoyance or sorrow. At best, there will be much for her to

endure; I dread an uprooting of long familiar habits for any one of her

age. Her life, if not her reason, are in her children's hands."

A time of terrible anxiety followed, for the inmates of the Red House.

The doctor insisted on a trained nurse. Algitha and Hadria felt uneasy

when they were away, even for a moment, from the sick-room, but the

doctor reminded them of the necessity, for the patient's sake as well as

their own, of keeping up their strength. He warned them that there would

be a long strain upon them, and that any lack of common sense, as

regards their own health, would certainly diminish the patient's chances

of recovery. Nobody had his clearest judgment and his quickest

observation at command, when nervously exhausted. Everything might

depend on a moment's decision, a moment's swiftness of insight. The

warning was not thrown away, but both sisters found the incessant

precautions trying.

Every thought, every emotion was swallowed up in the one awful anxiety.

"Oh, Hadria, I feel as if this were my fault," cried Algitha, on one

still, ominous night, after she had resigned her post at the bedside to

the nurse, who was to fill it for a couple of hours, after which Hadria

took her turn of watching.

"You? It was I," said Hadria, with trembling lips.

"Mother has never been strong," Algitha went on. "And my leaving home

was the beginning of all this trouble."

"And _my_ leaving home the end of it," her sister added.

Algitha was walking restlessly to and fro.

"And I went to Dunaghee so often, so often," she cried tearfully, "so

that mother should not feel deserted, and you too came, and the boys

when they could. But she never got over my leaving; she seemed to resent

my independence, my habit of judging for myself; she hated every detail

in which I differed from the girls she knew. If I had married and gone

to the Antipodes, she would have been quite satisfied, but----"

"Ah, why do people need human souls for their daily food?" cried Hadria

mournfully. She flung open the window of the bedroom, and looked out

over the deadly stillness of the fields and the heavy darkness. "But

they do need them," she said, in the same quiet, hopeless tone, "and

the souls have got to be provided."

"What is the time?" asked Algitha. A clock had struck, outside. "Could

it be the clock of Craddock church? The sound must have stolen down

hill, through the still air."

"It struck three."

"You ought to get some sleep," cried Algitha. "Remember what the doctor

said."

"I feel so nervous, so anxious. I could not sleep."

"Just for a few minutes," Algitha urged. Hadria consented at last, to go

into her room, which adjoined her sister's, and lie down on the bed. The

door was open between the rooms. "You must do the same," she stipulated.

There was silence for some minutes, but the silence swarmed with the

ghosts of voices. The air seemed thick with shapes, and terrors, and

strange warnings.

The doctor had not disguised the fact that the patient was fighting hard

for life, and that it was impossible to predict the result. Everything

depended on whether her strength would hold out. The weakness of the

heart was an unfortunate element in the case. To save strength and give

plentiful nourishment, without heightening the fever, must be the

constant effort. Algitha's experience stood her in good stead. Her

practical ability had been quickened and disciplined by her work. She

had trained herself in nursing, among other things.

Hadria's experience was small. She had to summon her intelligence to the

rescue. The Fullerton stock had never been deficient in this particular.

In difficult moments, when rule and tradition had done their utmost,

Hadria had often some original device to suggest, to fit the individual

case, which tided them over a crisis, or avoided some threatening

predicament.

"Are you sleeping?" asked Algitha, very softly.

"No," said Hadria; "I feel very uneasy to-night. I think I will go

down."

"Do try to get a little rest first, Hadria; your watch is next, and you

must not go to it fagged out."

"I know, but I feel full of dread. I _must_ just go and see that all is

right."

"Then I will come too," said Algitha.

They stole down stairs together, in the dim light of the oil lamps that

were kept burning all night. The clock struck the half-hour as they

passed along the landing. A strange fancy came to Hadria, that a dusky

figure drifted away before her, as she advanced. It seemed as though

death had receded at her approach. The old childish love for her mother

had revived in all its force, during this long fight with the reaper of

souls. She felt all her energies strung with the tension of battle. She

fought against a dark horror that she could not face. Knowing, and

realising vividly, that if her mother lived, her own dreams were ended

for ever, she wrestled with desperate strength for the life that was at

stake. Her father's silent wretchedness was terrible to see. He would

not hear a word of doubt as to the patient's recovery. He grew angry if

anyone hinted at danger. He insisted that his wife was better each day.

She would soon be up and well again.

"Never well again," the doctor had confided to Hubert, "though she may

possibly pull through."

Mr. Fullerton's extravagant hopefulness sent a thrill along the nerves.

It was as if he had uttered the blackest forebodings. The present crisis

had stirred a thousand feelings and associations, in Hadria, which had

long been slumbering. She seemed to be sent back again, to the days of

her childhood. The intervening years were blotted out. She realized now,

with agonising vividness, the sadness of her mother's life, the long

stagnation, the slow decay of disused faculties, and the ache that

accompanies all processes of decay, physical or moral. Not only the

strong appeal of old affection, entwined with the earliest associations,

was at work, but the appeal of womanhood itself:--the grey sad story of

a woman's life, bare and dumb and pathetic in its irony and pain: the

injury from without, and then the self-injury, its direct offspring;

unnecessary, yet inevitable; the unconscious thirst for the sacrifice of

others, the hungry claims of a nature unfulfilled, the groping instinct

to bring the balance of renunciation to the level, and indemnify oneself

for the loss suffered and the spirit offered up. And that propitiation

had to be made. It was as inevitable as that the doom of Orestes should

follow the original crime of the house of Atreus. Hadria's whole thought

and strength were now centred on the effort to bring about that

propitiation, in her own person. She prepared the altar and sharpened

the knife. In that subtle and ironical fashion, her fate was steadily at

work.

The sick-room was very still when the sisters entered. It was both warm

and fresh. A night-light burnt on the table, where cups and bottles were

ranged, a spirit-lamp and kettle, and other necessaries. The night-light

threw long, stealthy shadows over the room. The fire burnt with a red

glow. The bed lay against the long wall. As the two figures entered,

there was a faint sound of quick panting, and a moan. Hadria rushed to

the bedside.

"Quick, quick, some brandy," she called. Algitha flew to the table for

the brandy, noticing with horror, as she passed, that the nurse had

fallen asleep at her post. Algitha shook her hastily.

"Go and call Mr. Fullerton," she said sharply, "and quick, quick." The

patient was sinking. The nurse vanished. Algitha had handed the cup of

brandy to Hadria. The sisters stood by the bedside, scarcely daring to

breathe. Mr. Fullerton entered hurriedly, with face pallid and drawn.

"What is it? Is she----?"

"No, no; I hope not. Another moment it would have been too late, but I

think we were in time."

Hadria had administered the brandy, and stood watching breathlessly, for

signs of revival. She gave one questioning glance at Algitha. Her trust

in the nurse was gone. Algitha signed hope. The patient's breathing was

easier.

"I wonder if we ought to give a little more?" Hadria whispered.

"Wait a minute. Ah! don't speak to her, father; she needs all her

strength."

The ticking of the clock could be heard, in the dim light.

Algitha was holding her mother's wrist. "Stronger," she said. Hadria

drew a deep sigh. "We must give food presently. No more brandy."

"She's all right again, all right again!" cried Mr. Fullerton, eagerly.

The nurse went to prepare the extract which the doctor had ordered for

the patient, when quickly-digested nourishment was required. It gave

immediate strength. The brandy had stimulated the sinking organs to a

saving effort; the food sustained the system at the level thus achieved.

The perilous moment was over.

"Thank heaven!" cried Algitha, when the patient's safety was assured,

and she sank back on the pillow, with a look of relief on her worn face.

"If it had not been for you, Hadria----. What's the matter? Are you

ill?"

Algitha rushed forward, and the nurse dragged up a chair.

Hadria had turned deadly white, and her hand groped for support.

She drew herself together with a desperate effort, and sat down

breathing quickly. "I am not going to faint," she said, reassuringly.

"It was only for a moment." She gave a shudder. "What a fight it was! We

were only just in time----"

A low voice came from the bed. The patient was talking in her sleep.

"Tell Hadria to come home if she does not want to kill me. Tell her to

come home; it is her duty. I want her."

Then, after a pause, "I have always done _my_ duty,--I have sacrificed

myself for the children. Why do they desert me, why do they desert me?"

And then came a low moaning cry, terrible to hear. The sisters were by

the bedside, in a moment. Their father stood behind them.

"We are here, mother dear; we are here watching by you," Hadria

murmured, with trembling voice.

Algitha touched the thin hand, quietly. "We are with you, mother," she

repeated. "Don't you know that we have been with you for a long time?"

The sick woman seemed to be soothed by the words.

"Both here, both?" she muttered vaguely. And then a smile spread over

the sharpened features; she opened her eyes and looked wistfully at the

two faces bending over her.

A look of happiness came into her dimmed eyes.

"My girls," she said in a dreamy voice, "my girls have come back to

me--I knew they were good girls----"

Then her eyes closed, and she fell into a profound and peaceful

slumber.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"But, Doctor, is there no hope that with care and time, she will be able

to walk again?"

"I am sorry to say, none whatever. I am only thankful that my patient

has survived at all. It was little short of a miracle, and you must be

thankful for that."

Mrs. Fullerton had always been an active woman, in spite of not being

very robust, and a life passed on a couch had peculiar terrors for her.

The nervous system had been wrecked, not by any one shock or event, but

by the accumulated strains of a lifetime. The constitution was broken

up, once and for all.

A cottage had been taken, as near as possible to the Red House, where

the old couple were to settle for the rest of their days, within reach

of their children and grandchildren. Every wish of the invalid must be

respected, just or unjust. Absolute repose of mind and body was

imperatively necessary, and this could only be attained for her by a

complete surrender, on the part of her children, of any course of action

that she seriously disapproved. The income was too limited to allow of

Algitha's returning to her parents; otherwise Mrs. Fullerton would have

wished it. Algitha had now to provide for herself, as the allowance that

her father had given her could not be continued. She had previously done

her work for nothing, but now Mrs. Trevelyan, under whose care she had

been living, offered her a paid post in a Convalescent Home in which she

was interested.

"I am exceptionally fortunate," said Algitha, "for Mrs. Trevelyan has

arranged most kindly, so that I can get away to see mother and father at

the end of every week."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton had taken it for granted that Hadria would

remain at the Red House, and that Hubert would "forgive" her, as they

put it.

Circumstances seemed to take it equally for granted. Mrs. Fullerton

would now depend entirely on her children for every solace and pleasure.

She would require cheering, amusing, helping, in a thousand ways.

Algitha was to come down each week from Saturday till Monday, and the

brothers when they could. During the rest of the week, the invalid would

depend on her younger daughter. Hadria's leaving home, and the rumour of

a quarrel between her and Hubert, had conduced to her mother's illness,

perhaps had even caused it. Mrs. Fullerton had taken it bitterly to

heart. It had become obvious that Hadria would have now to remain at the

Red House, for her mother's sake, and that being so, she and Hubert

agreed that it was useless to discuss any other reasons for and against

it. Hubert was only too glad of her return, for appearance' sake.

Neither of them thought, for a moment, of what Henriette called a

"reconciliation." What had passed before Hadria's departure had revealed

finally, the hopelessness of such an attempt. Matters settled down

heavily and with an air of finality.

If only her mother's declining years were happy and peaceful, that would

be something of importance gained, but, alas! Mrs. Fullerton seemed

anything but happy. Her helplessness was hard to bear, and she felt the

worldly downfall, severely. All this, and the shattered state of her

nerves tended to make her exacting and irritable; and as she had felt

seriously aggrieved for so many years of her life, she now regarded the

devotion of her children as a debt tardily paid, and the habit grew

insensibly upon her of increasing her demands, as she found everyone so

ready to submit to them. The possession of power had its usual effect.

She knew no mercy in its use. Her daughters were made to feel that if

they had been less headstrong and selfish in the past, she would have

been a vigorous and active woman to this day. Obviously, the very least

they could do, was to try by all means in their power, to lighten the

burden they had laid upon her. Yet Mrs. Fullerton was, by nature,

unselfish. She would have gladly sacrificed herself for her children's

good, as indeed she had persistently and doggedly sacrificed herself for

them, during their childhood, but naturally she had her own view of what

constituted their "good." It did not consist in wasting one's youth and

looks among the slums of the East End, or in deserting one's home to

study music and mix in a set of second-rate people, in an out-of-the-way

district of Paris. As for Hadria's conduct about little Martha, Mrs.

Fullerton could scarcely bring herself to speak about it. It terrified

her. She thought it indicated some taint of madness in her daughter's

mind. Two charming children of her own and--but Mrs. Fullerton, with a

painful flush, would turn her mind from the subject. She had to believe

her daughter either mad or bad, and that was terrible to her maternal

pride. She could indeed scarcely believe that it had not all been a

painful dream, for Hadria was now so good and dutiful, so tender and

watchful; how _could_ she have behaved so abominably, so crazily? Every

day Hadria came to the cottage, generally with a bunch of fresh flowers

to place by her mother's couch, and then all the affairs of the

household were talked over and arranged, the daughter doing what was

needed in the way of ordering provisions or writing notes, for the

invalid could now write only with the greatest difficulty. Then Mrs.

Fullerton liked to have a chat, to hear what was in the papers, what was

going on in the neighbourhood, and to discuss all sorts of dreary

details, over and over again. Books that Hadria would sometimes bring

were generally left unread, unless they were light novels of a rigidly

conventional character. Mrs. Fullerton grew so excited in her

condemnation of any other kind, that it was dangerous to put them before

her. In the evenings, the old couple liked to have a rubber, and often

Hubert and Hadria would make up the necessary quartett; four silent

human beings, who sat like solemn children at their portentous play,

while the clock on the mantel-piece recorded the moments of their lives

that they dedicated to the mimic battle. Hours and hours were spent in

this way. But Hadria found that she could not endure it every night,

much to the surprise of her parents. The monotony, the incessant

recurrence, had a disastrous effect on her nerves, suggesting wild and

desperate impulses.

"I should go out of my mind, if I had no breaks," she said at last,

after trying it for some months. "In the interests of future rubbers, I

_must_ leave off, now and then. He that plays and runs away, will live

to play another day."

Mrs. Fullerton thought it strange that Hadria could not do even this

little thing for her parents, without grumbling, but she did not wish to

make a martyr of her. They must try and find some one else to take her

place occasionally.

Sometimes Joseph Fleming would accept the post, sometimes Lord Engleton,

and often Ernest or Fred, whose comparatively well-ordered minds were

not sent off their balance so easily as Hadria's. In this fashion, the

time went by, and the new state of affairs already seemed a hundred

years old. Paris was a clear, but far-off dream. An occasional letter

from Madame Vauchelet or Jouffroy, who mourned and wailed over Hadria's

surrender of her work, served to remind her that it had once been actual

and living. There still existed a Paris far away beyond the hills,

brilliant, vivid, exquisite, inspiring, and at this very moment the

people were coming and going, the river was flowing, the little steamers

plying,--but how hard it was to realise!

The family was charmed with the position of affairs.

"It is such a mercy things have happened as they have!" was the verdict,

delivered with much wise shaking of heads. "There can be no more mad or

disgraceful behaviour on the part of Hubert's wife, that is one comfort.

She can't murder her mother outright, though she has not been far off

it!"

From the first, Hadria had understood what the future must be. These

circumstances could not be overcome by any deed that she could bring

herself to do. Even Valeria was baffled. Her theories would not quite

work. Hadria looked things straight in the face. That which was

strongest and most essential in her must starve; there was no help for

it, and no one was directly to blame, not even herself. Fate, chance,

Providence, the devil, or whatever it was, had determined against her

particular impulses and her particular view of things. After all, it

would have been rather strange if these powers had happened exactly to

agree with her. She was not so ridiculous (she told herself) as to feel

personally aggrieved, but so long as fate, chance, Providence, or the

devil, gave her emotions and desires and talent and will, it was

impossible not to suffer. She might fully recognise that the suffering

was of absolutely no importance in the great scheme of things, but that

did not make the suffering less. If it must be, it must be, and there

was an end to it. Should someone gain by it, that was highly

satisfactory, and more than could be said of most suffering, which

exists, it would seem, only to increase and multiply after the manner of

some dire disease. This was what Hadria dreaded in her own case: that

the loss would not end with her. The children, Martha, everyone who came

under her influence, must share in it.

Henriette irritated her by an approving sweetness of demeanour,

carefully avoiding any look of triumph, or rather triumphing by that air

which said: "I wouldn't crow over you for the world!"

She was evidently brimming over with satisfaction. A great peril, she

felt, had been averted. The family and its reputation were saved.

"You appear to think that the eyes of Europe are riveted on the

Temperley family," said Hadria; "an august race, I know, but there _are_

one or two other branches of the human stock in existence."

"One _must_ consider what people say," said Henriette.

Hadria's time now was filled more and more with detail, since there were

two households instead of one to manage. The new charge was

particularly difficult, because she had not a free hand.

Without entirely abandoning her music, it had, perforce, to fall into

abeyance. Progress was scarcely possible. But as Henriette pointed

out--it gave so much pleasure to others--when Hadria avoided music that

was too severely classical.

At Craddock Place, one evening, she was taken in to dinner by a callow

youth, who found a fertile subject for his wit, in the follies and

excesses of what he called the "new womanhood." It was so delightful, he

said, to come to the country, where women were still charming in the

good old way. He knew that this new womanhood business was only a phase,

don't you know, but upon his word, he was getting tired of it. Not that

he had any objection to women being well educated (Hadria was glad of

that), but he could _not_ stand it when they went out of their sphere,

and put themselves forward and tried to be emancipated, and all that

sort of nonsense.

Hadria was not surprised that he could not stand it.

There had been a scathing article, the youth said, in one of the evening

papers. He wondered how the "New Woman" felt after reading it! It simply

made mincemeat of her.

"Wretched creature!" Hadria exclaimed.

The youth wished that women would really _do_ something, instead of

making all this fuss.

Hadria agreed that it _was_ a pity they were so inactive. Could not one

or two of the more favoured sex manage to inspire them with a little

initiative?

The youth considered that women were, by nature, passive and reflective,

not original.

Hadria thought the novelty of that idea not the least of its charms.

The youth allowed that, in her own way, and in her own sphere, woman was

charming and singularly intelligent. He had no objection to her

developing as much as she pleased, in proper directions. (Hadria felt

really encouraged.) But it was so absurd to pretend that women could do

work that was peculiar to men. (Hadria agreed, with a chuckle.) When had

they written one of Shakespeare's dramas? (When indeed? History was

ominously silent on that point.)

"Hadria, what is amusing you?" enquired her hostess, across the table.

"Oh, well--only the discouraging fact that no woman, as Mr. St. George

convincingly points out, has ever written one of Shakespeare's dramas!"

"Oh," said Lady Engleton with a broad smile, "but you know, Mr. St.

George, we really haven't had quite the same chances, have we?"

Perhaps not quite, as far as literature went, the youth admitted

tolerantly, but there was failure in original work in every direction.

This was no blame to women; they were not made that way, but facts _had_

to be recognised. Women's strength lay in a different domain--in the

home. It was of no use to try to fight against Nature. Look at music for

instance; one required no particular liberty to pursue _that_ art, yet

where were the women-composers? If there was so much buried talent among

women, why didn't they arise and bring out operas and oratorios?

Hadria couldn't understand it; especially as the domestic life was

arranged, one might almost say, with a special view to promoting musical

talent in the mistress of the household. Yet where were those oratorios?

She shook her head. Mr. St. George, she thought, had clearly proved that

the inherent nature of women was passive and imitative, while that of

man, even in the least remarkable examples of the sex, was always

powerful and original to the verge of the perilous!

"I think we had better go to the drawing-room," said Lady Engleton,

discreetly. The youth twirled his moustaches thoughtfully, as the ladies

filed out.

Hadria's happiest hours were now those that she spent with little

Martha, who was growing rapidly in stature and intelligence. The

child's lovable nature blossomed sweetly under the influence of Hadria's

tenderness. When wearied, and sad at heart, an hour in the Priory

garden, or a saunter along the roadside with little Martha, was like the

touch of a fresh breeze after the oppression of a heated room. Hadria's

attachment to the child had grown and grown, until it had become almost

a passion. How was the child to be saved from the usual fate of

womanhood? Hadria often felt a thrill of terror, when the beautiful blue

eyes looked out, large and fearless, into the world that was just

unfolding before them, in its mysterious loveliness.

The little girl gave promise of beauty. Even now there were elements

that suggested a moving, attracting nature. "At her peril," thought

Hadria, "a woman moves and attracts. If I can only save her!"

Hadria had not seen Professor Fortescue since her return from Paris. She

felt that he, and he alone, could give her courage, that he and he alone

could save her from utter despondency. If only he would come! For the

first time in her life, she thought of writing to ask him for personal

help and advice. Before she had carried out this idea, the news came

that he was ill, that the doctor wished him to go abroad, but that he

was forced to remain in England, for another three months, to complete

some work, and to set some of his affairs in order. Hadria, in

desperation, was thinking of throwing minor considerations to the winds,

and going to see for herself the state of affairs (it could be managed

without her mother's knowledge, and so would not endanger her health or

life), when the two boys were sent back hastily from school, where

scarlet fever had broken out. They must have caught the infection before

leaving, for they were both taken ill.

Valeria came down to Craddock Dene, for the day. She seemed almost

distraught. Hadria could see her only at intervals. The sick children

required all her attention. Valeria wished to visit them. She had

brought the poor boys each a little gift.

"But you may take the fever," Hadria remonstrated.

Valeria gave a scornful snort.

"Are you tired of life?"

"I? Yes. It is absurd. I have no place in it, no tie, nothing to bind me

to my fellows or my race. What do they care for a faded, fretful woman?"

"You know how your friends care for you, Valeria. You know, for

instance, what you have been in my life."

"Ah, my dear, I _don't_ know! I have a wretched longing for some strong,

absorbing affection, something paramount, satisfying. I envy you your

devotion to that poor little child; you can shew it, you can express it,

and you have the child's love in return. But I, who want much more than

that, shall never get even that. I threw away the chance when I had it,

and now I shall end my days, starving."

Hadria was silent. She felt that these words covered something more than

their ostensible meaning.

"I fear Professor Fortescue is very ill," said Valeria restlessly.

Her face was flushed, and her eyes burnt.

"I fear he is," said Hadria sadly.

"If--if he were to die----" Hadria gave a low, horrified exclamation.

"Surely there is no danger of that!"

"Of course there is: he told me that he did not expect to recover."

Valeria was crouching before the fire, with a look of blank despair.

Hadria, pale to the lips, took her hand gently and held it between her

own. Valeria's eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Ah, Hadria, you will

understand, you will not despise me--you will only be sorry for me--why

should I not tell you? It is eating my heart out--have you never

suspected, never guessed----?"

Hadria, with a startled look, paused to consider, and then, stroking

back the beautiful white hair with light touch, she said, "I think I

have known without knowing that I knew. It wanted just these words of

yours to light up the knowledge. Oh, Valeria, have you carried this

burden for all these years?"

"Ever since I first met him, which was just before he met his wife. I

knew, from the first, that it was hopeless. He introduced her to me

shortly after his engagement. He was wrapped up in her. With him, it was

once and for all. He is not the man to fall in love and out of it, over

and over again. We were alike in that. With me, too, it was once for

all. Oh, the irony of life!" Valeria went on with an outburst of energy,

"I was doomed to doom others to similar loss; others have felt for me,

in vain, what I, in vain, felt for him! I sent them all away, because I

could not bring myself to endure the thought of marrying any other man,

and so I pass my days alone--a waif and stray, without anything or

anyone to live for."

"At least you have your work to live for, which is to live for many,

instead of for one or two."

"Ah, that does not satisfy the heart."

"What _does_?" Hadria exclaimed.

Anxiety about Professor Fortescue now made a gloomy background to the

responsibilities of Hadria's present life. Valeria's occasional visits

were its bright spots. She looked forward to them, with pathetic

eagerness. The friendship became closer than it had ever been before,

since Valeria had confided her sad secret.

"Yet, Valeria, I envy you."

"Envy me?" she repeated blankly.

"I have never known what a great passion like that means; I have never

felt what you feel, and surely to live one's life with all its pettiness

and pain, yet never to know its extreme experiences, is sadder than to

have those experiences and suffer through them."

"Ah, yes, you are right," Valeria admitted. "I would not be without it

if I could."

The thought of what she had missed was beginning to take a hold upon

Hadria. Her life was passing, passing, and the supreme gifts would never

be hers. She must for ever stand outside, and be satisfied with shadows

and echoes.

"Are you very miserable, Hadria?" Valeria asked, one day.

"I am benumbed a little now," Hadria replied. "That must be, if one is

to go on at all. It is a provision of nature, I suppose. All that was

threatening before I went to Paris, is now being fulfilled. I can

scarcely realize how I could ever have had the hopefulness to make that

attempt. I might have known I could not succeed, as things are. How

_could_ I? But I am glad of the memory. It pains me sometimes, when all

the acute delight and charm return, at the call of some sound or scent,

some vivid word; but I would not be without the memory and the dream--my

little illusion."

"Supposing," said Valeria after a long pause, "that you could live your

life over again, what would you do?"

"I don't know. It is my impression that in my life, as in the lives of

most women, all roads lead to Rome. Whether one does this or that, one

finds oneself in pretty much the same position at the end. It doesn't

answer to rebel against the recognized condition of things, and it

doesn't answer to submit. Only generally one _must_, as in my case. A

choice of calamities is not always permitted."

"It is so difficult to know which is the least," said Valeria.

"I don't believe there _is_ a 'least.' They are both unbearable. It is a

question which best fits one's temperament, which leads soonest to

resignation."

"Oh, Hadria, you would never achieve resignation!" cried Valeria.

"Oh, some day, perhaps!"

Valeria shook her head. She had no belief in Hadria's powers in that

direction. Hopelessness was her nearest approach to that condition of

cheerful acquiescence which, Hadria had herself said, profound faith or

profound stupidity can perhaps equally inspire.

"At least," said Valeria, "you know that you are useful and helpful to

those around you. You make your mother happy."

"No, my mother is not happy. My work is negative. I just manage to

prevent her dying of grief. One must not be too ambitious in this stern

world. One can't make people happy merely by reducing oneself, morally,

to a jelly. Sometimes, by that means, one can dodge battle and murder

and sudden death."

"It is terrible!" cried Valeria.

"But meanwhile one lays the seed of future calamities, to avoid which

some other future woman will have to become jelly. The process always

reminds me of the old practice of the Anglo-Saxon kings, who used to buy

off the Danes when they threatened invasion, and so pampered the enemy

whom their successors would afterwards have to buy off at a still more

ruinous cost. I am buying off the Danes, Valeria."

CHAPTER XL.

"Do you know it is a year to-day, since we came to this cottage?"

exclaimed Mrs. Fullerton. "How the time flies!"

The remark was made before the party settled to the evening's whist.

"You are looking very much better than you did a month after your

illness, Mrs. Fullerton," said Joseph Fleming, who was to take a hand,

while Hadria played Grieg or Chopin, or Scottish melodies to please the

old people. The whist-players enjoyed music during the game.

"Ah, I shall never be well," said Mrs. Fullerton. "One can't recover

from long worry, Mr. Fleming. Shall we cut for partners?"

It was a quaint, low-pitched little room, filled with familiar furniture

from Dunaghee, which recalled the old place at every turn. The game went

on in silence. The cards were dealt, taken up, shuffled, sorted, played,

massed together, cut, dealt, sorted, and so on, round and round; four

grave faces deeply engrossed in the process, while the little room was

filled with music.

Mrs. Fullerton had begun to feel slightly uneasy about her daughter. "So

much nursing has told upon her," said everyone. The illness of the two

boys had come at an unfortunate moment. She looked worn and white, and

dreadfully thin. She seemed cheerful, and at times her mood was even

merry, but she could not recover strength. At the end of the day, she

would be completely exhausted. This had not been surprising at first,

after the long strain of nursing, but Mrs. Fullerton thought it was

time that she began to mend. She feared that Hadria spent too many hours

over her composing; she sat up at night, perhaps. What good did all this

composing do? Nobody ever heard of it. Such a sad pity that she could

not see the folly of persevering in the fruitless effort.

Lady Engleton was sure that Hadria saw too few people, lived too

monotonous a life. Craddock Place was filled with guests just now, and

Lady Engleton used her utmost persuasion to induce Hubert and Hadria to

come to dinner, or to join the party, in the evening, whenever they

could.

Hadria shrank from the idea. It was adding another burden to her already

failing strength. To talk coherently, to be lively and make oneself

agreeable, to have to think about one's dress,--it all seemed

inexpressibly wearisome. But Lady Engleton was so genuinely eager to

administer her cure that Hadria yielded, half in gratitude, half in

order to save the effort of further resistance.

She dragged herself upstairs to dress, wishing to heaven she had

refused, after all. The thought of the lights, the sound of voices, the

complexity of elements and of life that she had to encounter, made her

shrink into herself. She had only one evening gown suitable for the

occasion. It was of some white silken stuff, with dull rich surface. A

bunch of yellow roses and green leaves formed the decoration. Hubert

approved of her appearance. To her own surprise she felt some new

feeling creep into her, under the influence of the exquisite attire. It

put her a little more in tune. At least there were beautiful and dainty

things in the world. The fresh green of the rose leaves, and the full

yet delicate yellow of the fragrant roses on the creamy lace, evoked a

feeling akin to the emotion stirred by certain kinds of music; or, in

other words, the artistic sensibility had been appealed to through

colour and texture, instead of through harmony.

The drawing-room at Craddock Place was glowing with subdued

candle-light. Lady Engleton's rooms carried one back to a past epoch,

among the dainty fancies and art of a more leisurely and less vulgar

century. Lady Engleton admitted nothing that had not the quality of

distinction, let it have what other quality it might. Hadria's mood,

initiated at home, received impetus at Craddock Place. It was a

luxurious mood. She desired to receive rather than to give: to be

delicately ministered to; to claim the services of generations of

artists, who had toiled with fervour to attain that grand ease and

simplicity, through faithful labour and the benison of heaven.

Hadria had attracted many eyes as she entered the room. Unquestionably

she was looking her best to-night, in spite of her extreme pallor. She

was worthy to take her place among the beautiful objects of art that

Lady Engleton had collected round her. She had the same quality. Hubert

vaguely perceived this. He heard the idea expressed in so many words by

a voice that he knew. He looked round, and saw Professor Theobald

bending confidentially towards Joseph Fleming.

"Oh, Professor, I did not know you were to be here to-night!"

"What has your guardian spirit been about, not to forewarn you?" asked

the Professor.

"I am thinking of giving my guardian spirit a month's warning," returned

Hubert; "he has been extremely neglectful of late. And how have you been

getting on all this time, Professor?"

Theobald gave some fantastic answer, and crossed the room to Mrs.

Temperley, who was by this time surrounded by a group of acquaintances,

among them Madame Bertaux, who had just come from Paris, and had news of

all Hadria's friends there.

"Mrs. Temperley, may I also ask for one passing glance of recognition?"

Hadria turned round with a little start, and a sudden unaccountable

sense of disaster.

"Professor Theobald!"

She did not look pleased to see him, and as they shook hands, his mouth

shut sharply, as it always did when his self-love was wounded. Then, a

gleam of resolve or cunning came into his face, and the next instant he

was at his suavest.

"Do you know, Mrs. Temperley, I scarcely recognized you when you first

came in. 'Who can this beautiful, distinguished-looking woman be?' I

said to myself."

Hadria smiled maliciously.

"You think I am so much changed?"

Professor Theobald began to chuckle.

"The trowel, I see, is still your weapon," she added, "but I am

surprised that you have not learnt to wield the implement of sway with

more dexterity, Professor."

"I am not accustomed to deal with such quick-witted ladies, Mrs.

Temperley."

"You shew your hand most frankly," she answered; "it almost disarms

one."

A few introductory chords sounded through the room. Hadria was sitting

in front of the window, across which the pale green curtains had been

drawn. Many eyes wandered towards her.

"I should like to paint you just like that," murmured Lady Engleton;

"you can't imagine what a perfect bit of harmony you make, with my

brocade." A cousin of Lord Engleton was at the piano. He played an old

French gavotte.

"That is the finishing touch," added Lady Engleton, below her breath. "I

should like to paint you and the curtains and Claude Moreton's gavotte

all together."

The performance was received with enthusiasm. It deepened Hadria's mood,

set her pulses dancing. She assented readily to the request of her

hostess that she should play. She chose something fantastic and dainty.

It had a certain remoteness from life.

"Like one of Watteau's pictures," said Claude Moreton, who was hanging

over the piano. He was tall and dark, with an expression that betrayed

his enthusiastic temperament. A group had collected, among them

Professor Theobald. Beside him stood Marion Fenwick, the bride whose

wedding had taken place at Craddock Church about eighteen months

before.

It seemed as if Hadria were exercising some influence of a magnetic

quality. She was always the point of attraction, whether she created a

spell with her music, or her speech, or her mere personality. In her

present mood, this was peculiarly gratifying. The long divorce from

initiative work which events had compelled, the loss of nervous vigour,

the destruction of dream and hope, had all tended to throw her back on

more accessible forms of art and expression, and suggested passive

rather than active dealings with life. She was wearied with petty

responsibilities, and what she called semi-detached duties. It was a

relief to sit down in white silk and lace, and draw people to her simply

by the cheap spell of good looks and personal magnetism. That she

possessed these advantages, her life in Paris had made obvious. It was

the first time that she had been in contact with a large number of

widely differing types, and she had found that she could appeal to them

all, if she would. Since her return to England, anxieties and influences

extremely depressing had accustomed her to a somewhat gloomy atmosphere.

To-night the atmosphere was light and soft, brilliant and enervating.

"This is my Capua," she said laughingly, to her hostess.

It invited every luxurious instinct to come forth and sun itself. Marion

Fenwick's soft, sweet voice, singing Italian songs to the accompaniment

of the guitar, repeated the invitation.

It was like a fairy gift. Energy would be required to refuse it. And

why, in heaven's name, if she might not have what she really wanted, was

she to be denied even the poor little triumphs of ornamental womanhood?

Was the social order which had frustrated her own ambitions to dominate

her conscience, and persuade her voluntarily to resign that _one_

kingdom which cannot be taken from a woman, so long as her beauty lasts?

Why should she abdicate? The human being was obviously susceptible to

personality beyond all other things. And beauty moved that absurd

creature preposterously. _There_, at least, the woman who chanced to be

born with these superficial attractions, had a royal territory, so long

as she could prevent her clamorous fellows from harassing and wearing

those attractions away. By no direct attack could the jealous powers

dethrone her. They could only do it indirectly, by appealing to the

conscience which they had trained; to the principles that they had

instilled; by convincing the woman that she owed herself, as a debt, to

her legal owner, to be paid in coined fragments of her being, till she

should end in inevitable bankruptcy, and the legal owner himself found

her a poor investment!

It would have startled that roomful of people, who expressed everything

circuitously, pleasantly, without rough edges, had they read beneath

Mrs. Temperley's spoken words, these unspoken thoughts.

Marion Fenwick's songs and the alluring softness of her guitar, seemed

the most fitting accompaniment to the warm summer night, whose breath

stirred gently the curtains by the open window, at the far end of the

room.

Lady Engleton was delighted with the success of her efforts. Mrs.

Temperley had not looked so brilliant, so full of life, since her

mother's illness. Only yesterday, when she met her returning from the

Cottage, her eyes were like those of a dying woman, and now----!

"People say ill-natured things about Mrs. Temperley," she confided to an

intimate friend, "but that is because they don't understand her."

People might have been forgiven for not understanding her, as perhaps

her hostess felt, noticing Hadria's animation, and the extraordinary

power that she was wielding over everyone in the room, young and old.

That power seemed to burn in the deep eyes, whose expression changed

from moment to moment. Hadria's cheeks, for once, had a faint tinge of

colour. The mysterious character of her beauty became more marked.

Professor Theobald followed her, with admiring and studious gaze.

Whether she had felt remorseful for her somewhat unfriendly greeting at

the beginning of the evening, or from some other cause, her manner to

him had changed. It was softer, less mocking. He perceived it instantly,

and pursued his advantage. The party still centred eagerly round the

piano. Hadria was under the influence of music; therefore less careful

and guarded than usual, more ready to sway on the waves of emotion. And

beyond all these influences, tending in the same direction, was the

underlying spirit of rebellion against the everlasting "Thou shalt not"

that met a woman at every point, and turned her back from all paths save

one. And following that one (so ran Hadria's insurrectionary thoughts),

the obedient creature had to give up every weapon of her womanhood;

every grace, every power; tramping along that crowded highway, whereon

wayworn sisters toil forward, with bandaged eyes, and bleeding feet; and

as their charm fades, in the pursuing of their dusty pilgrimage, the

shouts, and taunts, and insults, and laughter of their taskmasters

follow them, while still they stumble on to the darkening land that

awaits them, at the journey's end: Old Age, the vestibule of Death.

Hadria's eyes gleamed strangely.

"They shall not have their way with me too easily. I can at least give

my pastors and masters a little trouble. I can at least fight for it,

losing battle though it be."

The only person who seemed to resist Hadria's influence to-night, was

Mrs. Jordan, the mother of Marion Fenwick.

"My dear madam," said Professor Theobald, bending over the portly form

of Mrs. Jordan, "a woman's first duty is to be charming."

"Oh, that comes naturally, Professor," said Hadria, "though it is rather

for _you_ than for _me_ to say that. You are always missing

opportunities."

"Believe me, I will miss them no more," he said emphatically.

"Tell us _your_ idea of a woman's duty, Mrs. Jordan," prompted Madame

Bertaux maliciously. Mrs. Jordan delivered herself of various immemorial

sentiments which met the usual applause. But Madame Bertaux said

brusquely that she thought if that sort of thing were preached at women

much longer, they would end by throwing over duty altogether, in sheer

disgust at the whole one-sided business. Mrs. Jordan bristled, and

launched herself upon a long and virtuous sentence. Her daughter Marion

looked up sharply when Madame Bertaux spoke. Then a timid, cautious

glance fell on her mother. Marion had lost her freshness and her

exquisite ætherial quality; otherwise there was little change in her

appearance. Hadria was struck by the way in which she had looked at

Madame Bertaux, and it occurred to her that Marion Fenwick was probably

not quite so acquiescent and satisfied as her friends supposed. But she

would not speak out. Early training had been too strong for her.

Professor Theobald was unusually serious to-night. He did not respond to

Hadria's flippancy. He looked at her with grave, sympathetic eyes. He

seemed to intimate that he understood all that was passing in her mind,

and was not balked by sprightly appearances. There was no sign of

cynicism now, no bandying of compliments. His voice had a new ring of

sincerity. It was a mood that Hadria had noticed in him once or twice

before, and when it occurred, her sympathy was aroused; she felt that

she had done him injustice. _This_ was evidently the real man; his

ordinary manner must be merely the cloak that the civilized being

acquires the habit of wrapping round him, as a protection against the

curiosity of his fellows. The Professor himself expressed it almost in

those words: "It is because of the infinite variety of type and the

complexity of modern life which the individual is called upon to

encounter, that a sort of fancy dress has to be worn by all of us, as a

necessary shield to our individuality and our privacy. We cannot go

through the complex process of adjustment to each new type that we come

across, so by common consent, we wear our domino, and respect the

unwritten laws of the great _bal masqué_ that we call society."

The conversation took more and more intimate and serious turns. Mrs.

Jordan was the only check upon it. Madame Bertaux followed up her first

heresy by others even more bold.

"Whenever one wants very particularly to have one's way about a matter,"

she said, "one sneaks off and gets somebody else persuaded that it is

his duty to sacrifice himself for us--_c'est tout simple_--and the

chances are that he meekly does it. If he doesn't, at least one has the

satisfaction of making him feel a guilty wretch, and setting oneself up

with a profitable grievance for life."

"To the true woman," said Mrs. Jordan, who had ruled her family with a

rod of iron for thirty stern years, "there is no joy to equal that of

self-sacrifice."

"Except that of exacting it," added Hadria.

"I advise everyone desirous of dominion to preach that duty, in and out

of season," said Madame Bertaux. "It is seldom that the victims even

howl, so well have we trained them."

"Truly I hope so!" cried Professor Theobald. "It must be most galling

when their lamentations prevent one from committing one's justifiable

homicide in peace and quietness. Imagine the discomfort of having a

half-educated victim to deal with, who can't hold his tongue and let one

perform the operation quietly and comfortably. It is enough to embitter

any Christian!"

The party broke up, with many cordial expressions of pleasure, and

several plans were made for immediately meeting again. Lady Engleton was

delighted to see that Mrs. Temperley entered with animation, into some

projects for picnics and excursions in the neighbourhood.

"Did I not tell you that all you wanted was a little lively society?"

she said, with genuine warmth, as the two women stood in the hall, a

little apart from the others.

Hadria's eye-lids suddenly fell and reddened slightly.

"Oh, you are so kind!" she exclaimed, in a voice whose tones betrayed

the presence of suppressed tears.

Lady Engleton, in astonishment, stretched out a sisterly hand, but

Hadria had vanished through the open hall door into the darkness

without.

CHAPTER XLI.

Mrs. Temperley was much discussed at Craddock Place. Professor Theobald

preserved the same grave mood whenever she was present. He only returned

to his usual manner, in her absence. "Theobald has on his Mrs. Temperley

manner," Claude Moreton used to say. The latter was himself among her

admirers.

"I begin to be afraid that Claude is taking her too seriously," Lady

Engleton remarked to her husband. He had fired up on one occasion when

Professor Theobald said something flippant about Mrs. Temperley. Claude

Moreton's usual calmness had caused the sudden outburst to be noticed

with surprise. He hated Professor Theobald.

"What possesses you both to let that fellow come here so much?"

"The Professor? Oh, he is a very old friend, you know, and extremely

clever. One has to put up with his manner."

Claude Moreton grunted. "These, at any rate, are no reasons why Mrs.

Temperley should put up with his manner!"

"But, my dear Claude, as you are always pointing out, the Professor has

a special manner which he keeps exclusively for her."

The special manner had already worked wonders. The Professor was to

Hadria by far the most entertaining person of the party. He had always

amused her, and even the first time she saw him, he had exercised a

strange, unpleasant fascination over her, which had put her on the

defensive, for she had disliked and distrusted him. The meetings in the

Priory gardens had softened her hostility, and now she began to feel

more and more that she had judged him unfairly. In those days she had a

strong pre-occupying interest. He had arrived on the scene at an

exciting moment, just when she was planning out her flight to Paris.

She had not considered the Professor's character very deeply. There were

far too many other things to think of. It was simpler to avoid him. But

now everything had changed. The present moment was not exciting; she had

no plans and projects in her head; she was not about to court the fate

of Icarus. That fate had already overtaken her. The waves were closing

over-head; her wings were wet and crippled, in the blue depths. Why not

take what the gods had sent and make the most of it?

The Professor had all sorts of strange lore, which he used, in his

conversations with Hadria, almost as a fisherman uses his bait. If she

shewed an inclination to re-join the rest of the party, he always

brought out some fresh titbit of curious learning, and Hadria was seldom

able to resist the lure.

They met often, almost of necessity. It was impossible to feel a

stranger to the Professor, in these circumstances of frequent and

informal meeting. Often when Hadria happened to be alone with him, she

would become suddenly silent, as if she no longer felt the necessity to

talk or to conceal her weariness. The Professor knew it too well; he saw

how heavily the burden of life weighed upon her, and how it was often

almost more than she could do, to drag through the day. She craved for

excitement, no matter of what kind, in order to help her to forget her

weariness. Her anxiety about Professor Fortescue preyed upon her. She

was restless, over-wrought, with every nerve on edge, unable now for

consecutive work, even had events permitted it. She followed the advice

and took the medicines of a London doctor, whom Mrs. Fullerton had

entreated her to consult, but she gained no ground.

"I begin to understand how it is that people take to drinking," she said

to Algitha, who used to bemoan this vice, with its terrible results, of

which she had seen so much.

"Ah! don't talk of it in that light way!" cried Algitha. "It is the

fashion to treat it airily, but if people only knew what an awful curse

it is, I think they would feel ashamed to be 'moderate' and indifferent

about it."

"I don't mean to treat it or anything that brings harm and suffering

'moderately,'" returned Hadria. "I mean only that I can see why the vice

is so common. It causes forgetfulness, and I suppose most people crave

for that."

"I think, Hadria, if I may be allowed to say so, that you are finding

your excitement in another direction."

"You mean that I am trying to find a substitute for the pleasures of

drunkenness in those of flirtation."

"I should not like to think that you had descended to _conscious_

flirtation."

Hadria looked steadily into the flames. They were in the morning-room,

where towards night-fall, even in summer, a small fire usually burnt in

the grate.

"When I remember what you used to think and what you used to be to us

all, in the old days at Dunaghee, I feel bitterly pained at what you are

doing, Hadria. You don't know where it may lead to, and besides it seems

so beneath you in every way."

"Appeals to the conscience!" cried Hadria, "I knew they would begin!"

"You knew _what_ would begin?"

"Appeals, exhortations to forego the sole remaining interest,

opportunity, or amusement that is left one! Ah, dear Algitha, I know you

mean it kindly and I admire you for speaking out, but I am not going to

be cajoled in that way! I am not going to be turned back and set

tramping along the stony old road, so long as I can find a pleasanter

by-way to loiter in. It sounds bad I know. Our drill affects us to the

last, through every fibre. My duty! By what authority do people choose

for me my duty? If I can be forced to abide by their decision in the

matter, let them be satisfied with their power to coerce me, but let

them leave my conscience alone. It does not dance to their piping."

"But you cannot care for this sort of excitement, Hadria."

"If I can get nothing else----?"

"Even then, I can't see what you can find in it to make you willing to

sink from your old ideals."

"Ideals! A woman with ideals is like a drowning creature with a

mill-stone round its neck! I have had enough of ideals!"

"It is a sad day to me when I hear you say so, Hadria!" the sister

exclaimed.

"Algitha, there is just one solitary weapon that _can't_ be taken from a

woman--and so it is considerately left to her. Ah, it is a dangerous toy

when brandished dexterously! Sometimes it sends a man or two away

howling. Our pastors and masters have a wholesome dread of the murderous

thing--and what wails, and satires, and lamentations it inspires!

Consult the literature of all lands and ages! Heaven-piercing! The only

way of dealing with the awkward dilemma is to get the woman persuaded to

be 'good,' and to lay down her weapon of her own accord, and let it

rust. How many women have been so persuaded! Not I!"

"I know, and I understand how you feel; but oh, Hadria, _this_ is not

the way to fight, _this_ will bring no good to anyone. And as for

admiration, the admiration of men--why, you know it is not worth

having--of this sort."