"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."

"Oh, do I not know it! It is less than worthless. But I am not seeking
anything of permanent value; I am seeking excitement, and the
superficial satisfaction of brandishing the weapon that everyone would
be charmed to see me lay in the dust. I _won't_ lay it down to please
anybody. Dear me, it will soon rust of its own accord. You might as well
ask some luckless warrior who stands at bay, facing overwhelming odds,
to yield up his sword and leave himself defenceless. It is an insult to
one's common sense."

Algitha's remonstrance seemed only to inflame her sister's mood, so she
said no more. But she watched Hadria's increasingly reckless conduct,
with great uneasiness.

"It really _is_ exciting!" exclaimed Hadria, with a strange smile. The
whole party had migrated for the day, to the hills at a distance of
about ten miles from Craddock Dene. A high spot had been chosen, on the
edge of woodland shade, looking out over a wide distance of plain and
far-off ranges. Here, as Claude Moreton remarked, they were to spoil the
landscape, by taking their luncheon.

"Or what is worse, by giving ourselves rheumatism," added Lord
Engleton.

"What grumbling creatures men are!" exclaimed his wife, "and what
pleasures they lose for themselves and make impossible for others, by
this stupid habit of dwelling upon the disadvantages of a situation,
instead of on its charms."

"We ought to dwell upon the fowl and the magnificent prospect, and
ignore the avenging rheumatism," said Claude Moreton.

"Oh no, guard against it," advised Algitha, with characteristic common
sense. "Sit on this waterproof, for instance."

"Ah, there you have the true philosophy!" cried Professor Theobald.
"Contentment and forethought. Observe the symbol of forethought." He
spread the waterproof to the wind.

"There is nothing like a contented spirit!" cried Lady Engleton.

"Who is it that says you knock a man into a ditch, and then you tell him
to remain content in the position in which Providence has placed him?"
asked Hadria.

"Even contentment has its dangers," said Claude Moreton, dreamily.

At the end of the meal, Hadria rose from the rug where she had been
reclining, with the final assertion, that she thought the man who was
knocked into the ditch and told to do his duty there, would do the best
service to mankind, as well as to himself, by making a horrid clamour
and trying to get out again. A group collected round her, almost
immediately.

"Mrs. Fenwick, won't you give us a song!" cried Madame Bertaux. "I see
you have been kind enough to bring your guitar."

Marion was enthroned upon the picnic-basket, with much pomp, and her
guitar placed in her hand by Claude Moreton. Her figure, in her white
gown and large straw hat, had for background the shadows of thick woods.

Professor Theobald sank down on the grass at Hadria's side. She felt
that his mood was agitated. She could not be in much doubt as to its
cause. The reckless _rôle_ that she had been playing was bringing its
result. Hadria was half alarmed, half exultant. She had a strange, vague
notion of selling her life dearly, to the enemy. Only, of late, this
feeling had been mixed with another, of which she was scarcely
conscious. The subtle fascination which the Professor exercised over her
had taken a stronger hold, far stronger than she knew.

She was sitting on a little knoll, her arm resting on her knee, and her
cheek in her hand. In the exquisitely graceful attitude, was an element
of self-abandonment. It seemed as if she had grown tired of guiding and
directing herself, and were now commending herself to fate or fortune,
to do with her as they would, or must.

Marion struck a quiet chord. Her voice was sweet and tender and full,
admirably suited to the song. Every nerve in Hadria answered to her
tones.

          "Oh, gather me the rose, the rose
           While yet in flower we find it;
           For summer smiles, but summer goes,
           And winter waits behind it.

          "For with the dream foregone, foregone,
           The deed foreborne for ever,
           The worm regret will canker on,
           And time will turn him never."

Professor Theobald shifted his position slightly.

          "Ah, well it were to love, my love,
           And cheat of any laughter
           The fate beneath us and above,
           The dark before and after.

          "The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
           The sunlight and the swallow,
           The dream that comes, the dream that goes,
           The memories that follow."

The song was greeted with a vague stir among the silent audience. A
little breeze gave a deep satisfied sigh, among the trees.

Several other songs followed, and then the party broke up. They were to
amuse themselves as they pleased during the afternoon, and to meet on
the same spot for five o'clock tea.

"I _wish_ Hadria would not be so reckless!" cried Algitha anxiously.
"Have you seen her lately?"

"When last I saw her," said Valeria, "she had strolled off with the
Professor and Mr. Moreton. Mr. Fleming and Lord Engleton were following
with Mrs. Fenwick."

"There is safety in numbers, at any rate, but I am distressed about her.
It is all very well what she says, about not allowing her woman's sole
weapon to be wrenched from her, but she can't use it in this way,
safely. One can't play with human emotions without coming to grief."

"A man, at any rate, has no idea of being led an emotional dance," said
Miss Du Prel.

"Hadria has, I believe, at the bottom of her heart, a lurking desire to
hurt men, because they have hurt women so terribly," said Algitha.

"One can understand the impulse, but the worst of it is, that one is
certain to pay back the score on the good man, and let the other go
free."

Algitha shook her head, regretfully.

"Did Hadria never show this impulse before?"

"Never in my life have I seen her exercise her power so ruthlessly."

"I rather think she is wise after all," said Miss Du Prel reflectively.
"She might be sorry some day never to have tasted what she is tasting
now."

"But it seems to me dreadful. There is not a man who is not influenced
by her in the strangest manner; even poor Joseph Fleming, who used to
look up to her so. In my opinion, she is acting very wrongly."

"'He that has eaten his fill does not pity the hungry,' as the Eastern
proverb puts it. Come now, Algitha, imagine yourself to be cut off from
the work that supremely interests you, and thrown upon Craddock Dene
without hope of respite, for the rest of your days. Don't you think you
too might be tempted to try experiments with a power whose strength you
had found to be almost irresistible?"

"Perhaps I should," Algitha admitted.

"I don't say she is doing right, but you must remember that you have
not the temperament that prompts to these outbursts. I suppose that is
only to say that you are better than Hadria, by nature. I think perhaps
you are, but remember you have had the life and the work that you chose
above all others--she has not."

"Heaven knows I don't set myself above Hadria," cried Algitha. "I have
always looked up to her. Don't you know how painful it is when people
you respect do things beneath them?"

"Hadria will disappoint us all in some particular," said Miss Du Prel.
"She will not correspond exactly to anybody's theory or standard, not
even her own. It is a defect which gives her character a quality of the
unexpected, that has for me, infinite attraction."

Miss Du Prel had never shewn so much disposition to support Hadria's
conduct as now, when disapproval was general. She had a strong
fellow-feeling for a woman who desired to use her power, and she was
half disposed to regard her conduct as legitimate. At any rate, it was a
temptation almost beyond one's powers of resistance. If a woman might
not do this, what, in heaven's name, _might_ she do? Was she not
eternally referred to her woman's influence, her woman's kingdom? Surely
a day's somewhat murderous sport was allowable in _that_ realm! After
all, energy, ambition, nervous force, _must_ have an outlet somewhere.
Men could look after themselves. They had no mercy on women when they
lay in their power. Why should a woman be so punctilious?

"Only the man is sure to get the best of it," she added, bitterly. "He
loses so little. It is a game where the odds are all on one side, and
the conclusion foregone."

Unexpectedly, the underwood behind the speakers was brushed aside and
Hadria appeared before them. She looked perturbed.

"What is it? Why are you by yourself?"

"Oh, our party split up, long ago, into cliques, and we all became so
select, that, at last, we reduced each clique to one member. Behold the
very acme of selectness!" Hadria stood before them, in an attitude of
hauteur.

"This sounds like evasion," said Algitha.

"And if it were, what right have you to try to force me to tell what I
do not volunteer?"

"True," said her sister; "I beg your pardon."

Miss Du Prel rose. "I will leave you to yourselves," she said, walking
away.

Hadria sat down and rested one elbow on the grass, looking over the
sweep of the hill towards the distance. "That is almost like our old
vision in the caves, Algitha; mist and distant lands--it was a false
prophecy. You were talking about me when I came up, were you not?"

"Did you hear?"

"No, but I feel sure of it."

"Well, I confess it," said Algitha. "We are both very uneasy about you."

"If one never did anything all one's life to make one's friends uneasy,
I wonder if one would have any fun."

Algitha shook her head anxiously.

"'Choose what you want and pay for it,' is the advice of some accredited
sage," Hadria observed.

"Women have to pay so high," said Algitha.

"So much the worse, but there is such a thing as false economy."

"But seriously, Hadria, if one may speak frankly, I can't see that the
game is worth the candle. You have tested your power sufficiently. What
more do you want? Claude Moreton is too nice and too good a man to
trifle with. And poor Joseph Fleming! That is to me beyond everything."

Hadria flushed deeply.

"I never dreamt that he--I--I never tried, never thought for a
moment----"

"Ah! that is just the danger, Hadria. Your actions entail unintended
consequences. As Miss Du Prel says, 'It is always the good men whom one
wounds; the others wound us.'" Hadria was silent. "And Claude Moreton,"
continued Algitha presently. "He is far too deeply interested in you,
far too absorbed in what you say and do. I have watched him. It is
cruel."

Hadria grew fierce. "Has _he_ never cruelly injured a woman? Has _he_
not at least given moral support to the hideous indignities that all
womanhood has to endure at men's hands? At best one can make a man
suffer. But men also humiliate us, degrade us, jeer at, ridicule the
miseries that they and their society entail upon us. Yet for sooth, they
must be spared the discomfort of becoming a little infatuated with a
woman for a time--a short time, at worst! Their feelings must be
considered so tenderly!"

"But what good do you do by your present conduct?" asked Algitha,
sticking persistently to the practical side of the matter.

"I am not trying to do good. I am merely refusing to obey these rules
for our guidance, which are obviously drawn up to safeguard man's
property and privilege. Whenever I can find a man-made precept, that
will I carefully disobey; whenever the ruling powers seek to guide me
through my conscience, there shall they fail!"

"You forget that in playing with the feelings of others you are placing
yourself in danger, Hadria. How can you be sure that you won't yourself
fall desperately in love with one of your intended victims?" Hadria's
eyes sparkled.

"I wish to heaven I only could!" she exclaimed. "I would give my right
hand to be in the sway of a complete undoubting, unquestioning passion
that would make all suffering and all life seem worth while; some
emotion to take the place of my lost art, some full and satisfying sense
of union with a human soul to rescue one from the ghastly solitude of
life. But I am raving like a girl. I am crying for the moon."

"Ah, take care, take care, Hadria; that is a mood in which one may
mistake any twopenny-halfpenny little luminary for the impossible moon."

"I think I should be almost ready to bless the beautiful illusion,"
cried Hadria passionately.

CHAPTER XLII.

In the conversation with her sister, the name which Hadria had dreaded
to hear had not been mentioned. She felt as if she could not have met
her sister's eyes, at that moment, had she alluded to Professor
Theobald; for only five minutes before, in the wood, he had spoken to
her in a way that was scarcely possible to misunderstand, though his
wording was so cautious that she could not have taken offence, had she
been so minded, without drawing upon herself the possible retort. "My
dear lady, you have completely misunderstood me." The thought made her
flush painfully. But suppose he really _had_ meant what his words seemed
to imply? He could intend no insult, because he despised, and knew that
she despised, popular social creeds. Into what new realms was she
drifting? There was something attractive to Hadria, in the idea of
defying the world's laws. It was not as the dutiful property of another,
but as herself, a separate and responsible individual, that she would
act and feel, rightly or wrongly, as the case might be. That was a
matter between herself and her conscience, not between herself and the
world or her legal owner.

The Professor's ambiguous and yet startling speech had forced her to
consider her position. She remembered how her instinct had always been
to hold him aloof from her life, just because, as she now began to
believe, there was something in him that powerfully attracted her. She
had feared an attraction that appeared unjustified by the man's
character. But now the fascination had begun to take a stronger grip, as
the pre-occupying ideas of her life had been chased from their places.
It had insensibly crept in to fill the empty throne. So long as she had
cherished hope, so long as she was still struggling, this insidious
half-magnetic influence had been easily resisted. Now, she was set
adrift; her anchor was raised; she lay at the wind's mercy,
half-conscious of the peril and not caring.

Professor Theobald had an acute perception of the strange and confused
struggle that was going on in her mind. But he had no notion of the
peculiar reasons, in her case, for an effect that he knew to be far from
rare among women; he did not understand the angry, corroding action of a
strong artistic impulse that was incessantly baulked in full tide. The
sinister, menacing voices of that tide had no meaning for him, except as
expressing a _malaise_ which he had met with a hundred times before. He
put it down to an excess of emotional or nervous energy, in a nature
whose opportunities did not offer full scope to its powers. He had
grasped the general conditions, but he had not perceived the particular
fact that added tenfold to the evil which exists in the more usual, and
less complicated case.

He thought but little of a musical gift, having no sympathy with music;
and since he had never known what it was to receive anything but help
and encouragement in the exercise of his own talents, the effect upon
the mind and character of such an experience as Hadria's, was beyond the
range of his conceptions. He understood subtly, and misunderstood
completely, at one and the same time. But to Hadria, every syllable
which revealed how much he did understand, seemed to prove, by
implication, that he understood the whole. It never occurred to her that
he was blinder than Henriette herself, to the real centre and heart of
the difficulty.

It has been said that what the human being longs for above all things,
is to be understood: that he prefers it infinitely to being over-rated.
Professor Theobald gave Hadria this desired sensation. His attraction
for her was composed of many elements, and it was enhanced by the fact
that she had now grown so used to his presence, as to cease to notice
many little traits that had repelled her, at the beginning. Her critical
instincts were lulled. Thus had come to pass that which is by no means
an uncommon incident in human history: a toleration for and finally a
strong attraction towards a nature that began by creating distrust, and
even dislike.

Hadria's instinct now was to hunt up reasons for desiring the society of
Professor Theobald, for the gladness that she felt at the prospect of
seeing him. She wished to explain to herself how it was that he had
become so prominent a figure in her life. It was surprising how rapidly
and how completely he had taken a central position. Her feeling towards
him, and her admiring affection for Professor Fortescue, were as
different as night from day. She shrank from comparing the two emotions,
because at the bottom of her heart, she felt how infinitely less fine
and sound was this latter attachment, how infinitely less to be
welcomed. If any one spoke disparagingly of Professor Theobald, Hadria's
instinct was to stand up for him, to find ingenious reasons for his
words or his conduct that threw upon him the most favourable light, and
her object was as much to persuade herself as to convince her
interlocutor. What the Professor had said this afternoon, had brought
her to a point whence she had to review all these changes and
developments of her feeling. She puzzled herself profoundly. In
remembering those few words, she was conscious of a little thrill
of--not joy (the word was too strong), but of something akin to it. She
thought--and then laughed at herself--that it had a resemblance to the
sensation that is caused to the mind by the suggestion of some new and
entrancingly interesting idea--say about astronomy! And if she consulted
her mere wishes in the matter, apart from all other considerations, she
would explore farther in this direction. Whether curiosity or sentiment
actuated her, she could not detect. It would certainly be deeply
exciting to find out what her own nature really was, and still more so
to gain greater insight into his. Was this heartless, cold-blooded? Or
was it that she felt a lurking capacity for a feeling stronger than--or
at any rate different from--any that she had hitherto felt? This was a
secret that she could not discover. Hadria gave a frightened start. Was
she finding herself to be bad in a way that she had never suspected? If
she could but fully and completely escape from tradition, so that her
judgment might be quite unhampered. Tradition seemed either to make
human beings blindly submissive, or to tempt them to act out of an
equally blind opposition to its canons. One could never be entirely
independent. In her confusion, she longed to turn to some clear mind and
sound conscience, not so much for advice, as in order to test the effect
upon such a mind and conscience of the whole situation.

Professor Fortescue was the only person upon whose judgment and feeling
she could absolutely rely. What would he think of her? His impression
would be the best possible guide, for no one opposed more strongly than
he did the vulgar notion of proprietary rights between husband and wife,
no one asserted more absolutely the independence of the individual. Yet
Hadria could not imagine that he would be anything but profoundly sorry,
if he knew the recklessness of her feeling, and the nature of her
sentiment for Professor Theobald. But then he did not know how she
stood; he did not know that the blue hopeful distance of life had
disappeared; that even the middle-distance had been cut off, and that
the sticks and stones and details of a very speckly foreground now
confronted her immovably. She would like to learn how many women of her
temperament, placed in her position, would stop to enquire very closely
into the right and wrong of the matter, when for a moment, a little
avenue seemed on the point of opening, misty and blue, leading the eye
to hidden perilous distances.

And then Professor Theobald had, after all, many fine qualities. He was
complex, and he had faults like the rest of us; but the more one knew
him, the more one felt his kindness of heart (how good he was to little
Martha), his readiness to help others, his breadth of view and his
sympathy. These were not common qualities. He was a man whom one could
admire, despite certain traits that made one shrink a little, at times.
These moreover had disappeared of late. They were accidental rather than
intrinsic. It was a matter of daily observation that people catch
superficial modes of thought and speech, just as they catch accent, or
as women who have given no thought to the art of dress, sometimes
misrepresent themselves, by adopting, unmodified, whatever happens to be
in the fashion. Hadria had a wistful desire to be able to respect
Professor Theobald without reserve, to believe in him thoroughly, to
think him noble in calibre and fine in fibre. She had a vague idea that
emphatic statement would conduce to making all this true.

She had never met him alone since that day of the picnic, except for a
few chance minutes, when he had expressed over again, rather in tone
than in words, the sentiment before implied.

Algitha and Miss Du Prel were relieved to see that Hadria had, after
all, taken their advice. Without making any violent or obvious change in
her conduct, she had ceased to cause her friends anxiety. Something in
her manner had changed. Claude Moreton felt it instantly. He spoke of
leaving Craddock Place, but he lingered on. The house had begun to
empty. Lady Engleton wished to have some time to herself. She was
painting a new picture. But Professor Theobald remained. Joseph Fleming
went away to stay with his married sister. About this time Hubert had to
go abroad to attend to some business matters of a serious and tedious
character, connected with a law-suit in which he was professionally
interested.

From some instinct which Hadria found difficult to account for, she
avoided meeting the Professor alone. Yet the whole interest of the day
centred in the prospect of seeing him. If by chance, she missed him, she
felt flat and dull, and found herself going over in her mind every
detail of their last meeting. He had the art of making his most
trifling remark interesting. Even his comments on the weather had a
colour and quality of their own. Lady Engleton admired his lightness of
touch.

"Did you know that our amiable Professor shews his devotion to you, by
devotion to your _protégée_?" she asked one day, when she met Hadria
returning from the Priory with the two boys, whose holidays were not yet
over. "I saw him coming out of the child's cottage this morning, and she
shewed me the toy he had given her."

"He is very fond of her, I know," said Hadria.

"He gives her lots of things!" cried Jack, opening round and envious
eyes.

"How do _you_ know, sir?" enquired Lady Engleton.

"Because Mary says so," Jack returned.

Hadria was pleased at the kindness which the act seemed to indicate.

The doctor had ordered her to be in the open air as much as possible,
and to take a walk every day. Sometimes she would walk with the boys,
sometimes alone. In either case, the thought of Professor Theobald
pursued her. She often grew wearied with it, but it could not be
banished. If she saw a distant figure on the road, a little sick,
excited stir of the heart, betrayed her suspicion that it might be he.
She could not sincerely wish herself free from the strange infatuation,
for the thought of life without it, troublesome and fatiguing though it
was, seemed inexpressibly dull. It had taken the colour out of
everything. It had altered the very face of nature, in her eyes. Her
hope had been to escape loneliness, but with this preposterous secret,
she was lonelier than she had ever been before. She could no longer make
a confidante of herself. She was afraid of her own ridicule, her own
blame, above all of finding herself confronted with some accusation
against the Professor, some overpowering reason for thinking poorly of
him. Whenever they met, she was in terror lest he should leave her no
alternative. She often opened conversational channels by which he could
escape his unknown peril, and she would hold her breath till it was
over. She dreaded the cool-headed, ruthless critic, lurking within her
own consciousness, who would hear of no ingenious explanations of words
or conduct. But she would not admit to this dread--that would have been
to admit everything. She had not the satisfaction of openly thinking the
matter out, for the suspicion that so profoundly saddened her, must be
kept scrupulously hidden. Hadria was filled with dismay when she dared
to glance at the future. No wonder Valeria had warned her against
playing with fire! Was it always like this when people fell in love?
What a ridiculous, uncomfortable, outrageous thing it was! How
destructive to common sense and sanity and everything that kept life
running on reasonable lines. A poor joke at best, and oh, how stale!

"Shall I tell you your ruling passion, Mrs. Temperley?"

"If you can, Professor Theobald."

Before them stretched a woodland glade. The broad fronds of the bracken
made bright patches of light where the sun caught them, and tall plants,
such as hemlock and wild parsley, stood out, almost white against the
shade; the flies and midges moving round them in the warmth. At some
distance behind, the sound of voices could be heard through the windings
of the wood. There were snatches of song and laughter.

"Your ruling passion is power over others."

"It has been sadly thwarted then," she answered, with a nervous laugh.

"Thwarted? Surely not. What more can you want than to touch the emotions
of every one who comes across your path? It is a splendid power, and
ought to be more satisfying to the possessor than a gift of any other
kind."

Professor Theobald waited for her reply, but she made none.

He looked at her fixedly, eagerly. She could do nothing but walk on in
silence.

"Even an actor does not impress himself so directly upon his fellows as
a woman of--well, a woman like yourself. A painter, a writer, a
musician, never comes in touch at all with his public. We hear his name,
we admire or we decry his works, but the man or the woman who has
toiled, and felt, and lived, is unknown to us. He is lost in his work."

Hadria gave a murmur of assent.

"But you, Mrs. Temperley, have a very different story to tell. It is
_you_, yourself, your personality, in all its many-sided charm that we
all bow to; it is _you_, not your achievements that--that we love."

Hadria cleared her throat; the words would not come. A rebellious little
nerve was twitching at her eye-lid. After all, what in heaven's name was
she to say? It was too foolish to pretend to misunderstand; for tone,
look, manner all told the same story; yet even now there was nothing
absolutely definite to reply to, and her cleverness of retort had
deserted her.

"Ah! Mrs. Temperley--Hadria----" Professor Theobald had stopped short in
the path, and then Hadria made some drowning effort to resist the force
that she still feared. But it was in vain. She stood before him, paler
even than usual, with her head held high, but eye-lids that drooped and
lips that trembled. The movement of the leaves made faint quivering
little shadows on her white gown, and stirred delicately over the lace
at her throat. The emotion that possessed her, the mixture of joy and
dismay and even terror, passed across her face, in the moment's silence.
The two figures stood opposite to one another; Hadria drawing a little
away, swayed slightly backward, the Professor eagerly bending forward.
He was on the point of speaking, when there came floating through the
wood, the sound of a woman's voice singing. The voice was swiftly
recognised by them both, and the song.

Hadria's eye-lids lifted for a second, and her breathing quickened.

          "Oh, gather me the rose, the rose,
            While yet in flower we find it;
          For summer smiles, but summer goes,
            And winter waits behind it.

          "For with the dream foregone, foregone,
            The deed foreborne for ever,
          The worm regret will canker on,
            And time will turn him never."

Professor Theobald advanced a step. Hadria drew back.

          "So well it were to love, my love,
             And cheat of any laughter
           The fate beneath us and above,
             The dark before and after.

          "The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
             The sunshine and the swallow,
           The dream that comes, the dream that goes,
             The memories that follow!"

The sweet cadence died away. A bird's note took up the dropped thread of
music. The Professor broke into passionate speech.

"My cause is pleaded in your own language, Hadria, Hadria; listen to it,
listen. You know what is in my heart; I can't apologize for feeling it,
for I have no choice; no man has where you are concerned, as you must
have discovered long ago. And I do not apologize for telling you the
truth, you know it does you no wrong. This is no news to you; you must
have guessed it from the first. Your coldness, your rebuffs, betrayed
that you did. But, ah! I have struggled long enough. I can keep silence
no longer. I have thought of late that your feeling for me had changed;
a thousand things have made me hope--good heavens, if you knew what that
means to a man who had lost it! Ah! speak--don't look like that,
Hadria,--what is there in me that you always turn from? Speak, speak!"

"Ah! life is horribly difficult!" she exclaimed. "I wish to heaven I
had never budged from the traditions in which I was educated--either
that, or that everybody had discarded them. I feel one way and think
another."

"Then you do love me, Hadria," he cried.

Her instinct was to deny the truth, but there seemed to her something
mean in concealment, especially if she were to blame, especially if
those who respected tradition, and made it their guide and rule through
thick and thin, in the very teeth of reason, were right after all, as it
seemed to her, at this moment, that they were. If there were evil in
this strange passion, let her at least acknowledge her share in it. Let
her not "assume a virtue though she had it not."

Professor Theobald was watching her face, as for a verdict of life and
death.

"Oh, answer me, answer me--Yes or no, yes or no?" She had raised her
eyes for a moment, about to speak; the words were stifled at their
birth, for the next instant she was in his arms. Again came the voice of
the singer, nearer this time. The song was hummed softly.

          "Oh, gather me the rose, the rose,
             While yet in flower we find it,
           For summer smiles, but summer goes,
             And winter waits behind it."

CHAPTER XLIII.

The need for vigilance over that hidden distrust was more peremptory now
than ever. The confession once made, the die once cast, anything but
complete faith and respect became intolerable. Outwardly, affairs seemed
to run on very much as before. But Hadria could scarcely believe that
she was living in the same world. The new fact walked before her,
everywhere. She did not dare to examine it closely. She told herself
that a great joy had come to her, or rather that she had taken the joy
in spite of everything and everybody. She would order her affections
exactly as she chose. If only she could leave Craddock Dene! Hubert and
her parents considered the opinion of the public as of more importance
than anything else in life; for her mother's sake she was forced to
acquiesce; otherwise there was absolutely no reason why she and Hubert
should live under the same roof. It was a mere ceremony kept up on
account of others. That had been acknowledged by him in so many words.
And a wretched, ridiculous, irksome ceremony it was for them both.

Hadria refused now to meet Professor Theobald at the Cottage. His visits
there, which had been timed to meet her, must be paid at a different
hour. He remonstrated in vain. She shewed various other inconsistencies,
as he called them. He used to laugh affectionately at her "glimpses of
conscience," but said he cared nothing for these trifles, since he had
her assurance that she loved him. How he had waited and longed for that!
How hopeless, how impossible it had seemed. He professed to have fallen
in love at first sight. He even declared that Hadria had done the same,
though in a different way, without knowing it. Her mind had resisted
and, for the time, kept her feelings in abeyance. He had watched the
struggle. Her heart, he rejoiced to believe, had responded to him from
the beginning. By dint of repeating this very often, he had half
convinced Hadria that it was so. She preferred to think that her feeling
was of the long-standing and resistless kind.

Sometimes she had intervals of reckless happiness, when all doubts were
kept at bay, and the condition of belief that she assiduously
cultivated, remained with her freely. She felt no secret tug at the
tether. Professor Theobald would then be at his best; grave, thoughtful,
gentle, considerate, responsive to every mood.

When they met at Craddock Place and elsewhere, Hadria suffered miseries
of anxiety. She was terrified lest he should do or say something in bad
taste, and that she would see her own impression confirmed on the faces
of others. She put it to herself that she was afraid people would not
understand him as she did. The history of his past life, as he had
related it to her, appealed overpoweringly to all that was womanly and
protective in her nature. He was emotional by temperament, but
circumstance had doomed him to repression and solitude. This call on her
sympathy did more than anything to set Hadria's mind at rest. She gave a
vast sigh when that feeling of confidence became confirmed. Life, then,
need no longer be ridiculous! Hard and cruel it might be, full of lost
dreams, but at least there would be something in it that was perfect.
This new emotional centre offered the human _summum bonum_: release from
oneself.

Hadria and the Professor met, one morning, in the gardens of the Priory.
Hadria had been strolling down the yew avenue, her thoughts full of him,
as usual. She reached the seat at the end where once Professor Fortescue
had found her--centuries ago, it seemed to her now. How different was
_this_ meeting! Professor Theobald came by the path through the thick
shrubberies, behind the seat. There was a small space of grass at the
back. Here he stood, bending over the seat, and though he was usually
prudent, he did not even assure himself that no one was in sight, before
drawing Hadria's head gently back, and stooping to kiss her on the
cheek, while he imprisoned a hand in each of his. She flushed, and
looked hastily down the avenue.

"I wonder what our fate would be, if anyone had been there?" she said,
with a little shudder.

"No one was there, darling." He stood leaning over the high back of the
seat, looking down at his companion, with a smile.

"Do you know," he said, "I fear I shall have to go up to town to-morrow,
for the day."

Hadria's face fell. She hated him to go away, even for a short time; she
could not endure her own thoughts when his influence was withdrawn. His
presence wrapped her in a state of dream, a false peace which she
courted.

"Oh no, no," she cried, with a childish eagerness that was entirely
unlike her, "don't go."

"Do you really care so very much?" he asked, with a deep flush of
pleasure.

"Of course I do, of course." Her thoughts wandered off through strange
by-ways. At times, they would pass some black cavernous entrance to
unknown labyrinths, and the frightened thoughts would hurry by.
Sometimes they would be led decorously along a smooth highway, pacing
quietly; sometimes they would rise to the sunlight and spread their
wings, and then perhaps take sudden flight, like a flock of startled
birds.

Yes, he needed sympathy, and faith, and love. He had never had anyone to
believe in him before. He had met with hardness and distrust all his
life. She would trust him. He had conquered, step by step, his inimical
conditions. He was lonely, unused to real affection. Let her try to make
up for what he had lost. Let her forget herself and her own little woes,
in the effort to fill his life with all that he had been forced to
forego. (An impish thought danced before her for a second--"Fine talk,
but you know you love to be loved.") If her love were worth anything,
that must be her impulse. Let her beware of considering her own
feelings, her own wishes and fears. If she loved, let it be fully and
freely, generously and without reserve. That or nothing. ("Probably it
will be nothing," jeered the imp.) "Then what, in heaven's name, _is_ it
that I feel?" the other self seemed to cry in desperation.

"An idea has struck me," said the Professor, taking her hand and holding
it closely in his, "Why should you not come up to town, say on
Friday--don't start, dearest--it would be quite simple, and then for
once in our lives we should stand, as it were, alone in the world, you
and I, without this everlasting dread of curious eyes upon us. Alone
among strangers--what bliss! We could have a day on the river, or I
could take you to see--well, anything you liked--we should be free and
happy. Think of it, Hadria! to be rid of this incessant need for
caution, for hypocrisy. We have but one life to live; why not live it?"

"Why not live it, why not live it?" The words danced in her head, like
circles of little sprites carrying alluring wreaths of roses.

"Ah, we must be careful; there is much at stake," she said.

He began to plead, eloquently and skilfully. He knew exactly what
arguments would tell best with her. The imps and the other selves
engaged in a free fight.

"No; I must not listen; it is too dangerous. If it were not for my
mother, I should not care for anything, but as it is, I must risk
nothing. I have already risked too much."

"There would be no danger," he argued. "Trust to me. I have something to
lose too. It is of no use to bring the whole dead stupid weight of the
world on our heads. There is no sense in lying down under a heap of
rubbish, to be crushed. Let us go our way and leave other people to go
theirs."

"Easier said than done."

"Oh no; the world must be treated as one would treat a maniac who
brandished a razor in one's face. Direct defiance argues folly worse
than his."

"Of course, but all this subterfuge and deceit is hateful."

"Not if one considers the facts of the case. The maniac-world insists
upon uniformity and obedience, especially in that department of life
where uniformity is impossible. You don't suppose that it is ever
_really_ attained by any human being who deserves the name? Never! We
all wear the livery of our master and live our own lives not the less."

"Ah, I doubt that," said Hadria. "I think the livery affects us all,
right through to the bones and marrow. What young clergyman was it who
told me that as soon as he put on his canonicals, he felt a different
man, mind, heart, and personality?"

"Well, _your_ livery has never made you, Hadria, and that is all I care
for."

"Indeed, I am not so sure."

"It has not turned you out a Mrs. Jordan or a Mrs. Walker, for
instance."

"To the great regret of my well-wishers."

"To the great regret of your inferiors. There is nothing that people
regret so bitterly as superiority to themselves." Hadria laughed.

"I am always afraid of the gratifying argument based on the assumption
of superiority; one is apt to be brought down a peg, if ever one
indulges in it."

"I can't see that much vanity is implied in claiming superiority to the
common idiot of commerce," said the Professor, with a shrug.

"He is in the family," Hadria reminded him.

"The human family; yes, confound him!" They laughed, and the Professor,
after a pause, continued his pleading.

"It only needs a little courage, Hadria. My love, my dear one, don't
shake your head."

He came forward and sat down on the seat beside her, bending towards her
persuasively.

"Promise me to come to town on Friday, Hadria--promise me, dearest."

"But if--oh, how I hate all the duplicity that this involves! It creates
wretched situations, whichever way one turns. I never realized into what
a labyrinth it would lead one. I should like to speak out and be honest
about it."

"And your mother?"

"Oh, I know of course----" Hadria set her teeth. "It drives me mad, all
this!"

"Oh, Hadria! And you don't count _me_ then?"

"Obviously I count you. But one's whole life becomes a lie."

"That is surely schoolgirl's reasoning. Strange that you should be
guilty of it! Is one's life a lie because one makes so bold as to keep
one's own counsel? Must one take the world into one's confidence, or
stand condemned as a liar? Oh, Hadria, this is childish!"

"Yes, I am getting weak-minded, I know," she said feverishly. "I resent
being forced to resort to this sort of thing when I am doing nothing
wrong, according to my own belief. Why should I be forced to behave as
if I _were_ sinning against my conscience?"

"So you may say; that is your grievance, not your fault. But, after all,
compromise is necessary in _everything_, and the best way is to make the
compromise lightly and with a shrug of the shoulders, and then you find
that life becomes fairly manageable and often extremely pleasant."

"Yes, I suppose you are right." Hadria was picking the petals off a
buttercup one by one, and when she had destroyed one golden corolla, she
attacked another.

"Fate _is_ ironical!" she exclaimed. "Never in my life did I feel more
essentially frank and open-hearted than I feel now."

The Professor laughed.

"My impulse is to indulge in that sort of bluff, boisterous honesty
which forms so charming a feature of our national character. Is it not
disastrous?"

"It _is_ a little inopportune," Theobald admitted with a chuckle.

"Oh, it is no laughing matter! It amounts to a monomania. I long to take
Mrs. Walker aside and say 'Hi! look here, Mrs. Walker, I just want to
mention to you----' and so on; and Mrs. Jordan inspires me with a still
more fatal impulse of frankness. If only for the fun of the thing, I
long to do it."

"You are quite mad, Hadria!" exclaimed the Professor, laughing.

"Oh, no," she said, "only bewildered. I want desperately to be bluff and
outspoken, but I suppose I must dissemble. I long painfully to be like
'truthful James,' but I must follow in the footsteps of the sneaky
little boy who came to a bad end because he told a lie. The question is:
Shall my mother be sacrificed to this passionate love of truth?"

"Or shall I?" asked the Professor. "You seem to forget me. You frighten
me, Hadria. To indulge in frankness just now, means to throw me over,
and if you did that, I don't know how I should be able to stand it. I
should cut my throat."

Hadria buried her face in her hands, as if to shut out distracting
sights and sounds, so that she might think more clearly.

It seemed, at that moment, as if cutting one's throat would be the only
way out of the growing difficulty.

How _could_ it go on? And yet, how could she give him up? (The imp gave
a fiendish chuckle.) It would be so unfair, so cruel, and what would
life be without him? ("Moral development impossible!" cried the imp,
with a yell of laughter.) It would be so mean to go back
now--("Shocking!" exclaimed the imp.) Assuming that she ought never to
have allowed this thing to happen ("Oh, fie!") because she bore another
man's name (not being permitted to retain her own), ought she to throw
this man over, on second and (per assumption) better thoughts, or did
the false step oblige her to continue in the path she had entered?

"I seem to have got myself into one of those situations where there is
_no_ right," she exclaimed.

"You forget your own words: A woman in relation to society is in the
position of a captive; she may justly evade the prison rules, if she
can."

"So she may; only I want so desperately to wrench away the bars instead
of evading the rules."

"Try to remember that you----" The Professor stopped abruptly and stood
listening. They looked at one another. Hadria was deadly white. A step
was advancing along the winding path through the bushes behind them: a
half overgrown path, that led from a small door in the wall that ran
round the park. It was the nearest route from the station to the house,
and a short cut could be taken this way through the garden, to Craddock
Place.

"It's all right," the Professor said in a low voice; "we were saying
nothing compromising."

The step drew nearer.

"Some visitor to Craddock Place probably, who has come down by the 4.20
from town."

"Professor Fortescue!"

Hadria had sprung up, and was standing, with flushed cheeks, beside her
calmer companion.

Professor Fortescue's voice broke the momentary silence. He gave a warm
smile of pleasure and came forward with out-stretched hand.

"The hoped-for instant has come sooner than I thought," he cried
genially.

Hadria was shocked to see him looking very ill. He said that his doctor
had bullied him, at last, into deciding to go south. His arrangements
for departure had been rather hastily made, and he had telegraphed this
morning, to Craddock Place, to announce his coming. His luggage was
following in a hand-cart, and he was taking the short cut through the
Priory gardens. He had come to say good-bye to them all. Miss Du Prel,
he added, had already made up her mind to go abroad, and he hoped to
come across her somewhere in Italy. She had given him all news. He
looked anxiously at Hadria. The flush had left her face now, and the
altered lines were but too obvious.

"You ought to have change too," he said, "you are not looking well."

She laughed nervously. "Oh, I am all right."

"Let's sit down a moment, if you were not discussing anything very
important----"

"Indeed, we were, my dear Fortescue," said Professor Theobald, drawing
his colleague on to the seat, "and your clear head would throw much
light on the philosophy of the question."

"Oh, a question of abstract philosophy," said Professor Fortescue. "Are
you disagreeing?"

"Not exactly. The question that turned up, in the course of discussion,
was this: If a man stands in a position which is itself the result of an
aggression upon his liberty and his human rights, is he in honour bound
to abide by the laws which are laid down to coerce him?"

"Obviously not," replied Professor Fortescue.

"Is he morally justified in using every means he can lay hold of to
overcome the peculiar difficulties under which he has been tyrannously
placed?"

"Not merely justified, but I should say he was a poor fool if he
refrained from doing so."

"That is exactly what _I_ say."

"Surely Mrs. Temperley does not demur?"

"No; I quite agree as to the _right_. I only say that the means which
the situation may make necessary are sometimes very hateful."

"Ah, that is among the cruelest of the victim's wrongs," said Professor
Fortescue. "He is reduced to employ artifices that he would despise,
were he a free agent. Take a crude instance: a man is overpowered by a
band of brigands. Surely he is justified in deceiving those gentlemen of
the road, and in telling and acting lies without scruple."

"The parallel is exact," said Theobald, with a triumphant glance at
Hadria.

"Honour departs where force comes in. No man is bound in honour to his
captor, though his captor will naturally try to persuade his prisoner to
regard himself as so bound. And few would be our oppressions, if that
persuasion did not generally succeed!"

"The relations of women to society for instance----" began Theobald.

"Ah, exactly. The success of that device may be said to constitute the
history of womanhood. Take my brigand instance and write it large, and
you have the whole case in a nutshell."

"Then you would recommend rank rebellion, either by force or artifice,
according as circumstances might require?" asked Hadria.

Professor Fortescue looked round at her, half anxiously, half
enquiringly.

"There are perils, remember," he warned. "The woman is, by our
assumption, the brigand's captive. If she offends her brigand, he has
hideous punishments to inflict. He can subject her to pain and indignity
at his good pleasure. Torture and mutilation, metaphorically speaking,
are possible to him. How could one deliberately counsel her to risk all
that?"

There was a long silence.

Hadria had been growing more and more restless since the arrival of the
new-comer. She took no further part in the conversation. She was
struggling to avoid making comparisons between her two companions. The
contrast was startling. Every cadence of their voices, every gesture,
proclaimed the radical difference of nature and calibre.

Hadria rose abruptly. She looked pale and perturbed.

"Don't you think we have sat here long enough?" she asked.

They both looked a little surprised, but they acquiesced at once. The
three walked together down the yew avenue, and out across the lawn.
Professor Fortescue recalled their past meetings among these serene
retreats, and wished they could come over again.

"Nothing ever does come over again," said Hadria.

Theobald glanced at her, meaningfully.

"Look here, my dear fellow," he said, grasping Professor Fortescue by
the arm, and bending confidentially towards him, "I should like those
meetings to repeat themselves _ad infinitum_. I have made up my mind at
last. I want to take the Priory."

Hadria turned deadly pale, and stumbled slightly.

"Well, take it by all means. I should be only too glad to let it to a
tenant who would look after the old place."

"We must talk it over," said Theobald.

"That won't take long, I fancy. We talked it over once before, you
remember, and then you suddenly changed your mind."

"Yes; but my mind is steady now. The Priory is the place of all others
that I should like to pass my days in."

"Well, I think you are wise, Theobald. The place has great charm, and
you have friends here."

"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed Theobald.

Professor Fortescue looked vaguely round, as if expecting Hadria to
express some neighbourly sentiment, but she said nothing. He noticed how
very ill she was looking.

"Are you feeling the heat too severe?" he asked in concern. "Shall we
take a rest under these trees?"

But Hadria preferred to go on and rest at home. She asked when Professor
Fortescue was coming to see them at the Red House, but her tone was less
open and warm than usual, in addressing him. He said that to-morrow he
would walk over in the afternoon, if he might. Hadria would not allow
her companions to come out of their way to accompany her home. At the
Priory gate--where the griffins were grinning as derisively as ever at
the ridiculous ways of men--they took their respective roads.

Some domestic catastrophe had happened at the Red House. The cook had
called Mary "names," and Mary declared she must leave. Hadria shrugged
her shoulders.

"Oh, well then, I suppose you must," she said wearily, and retired to
her room, in a mood to be cynically amused at the tragedies that the
human being manufactures for himself, lest he should not find the
tragedies of birth and death and parting, and the solitude of the
spirit, sufficient to occupy him during his little pilgrimage. She sat
by the open window that looked out over the familiar fields, and the
garden that was gay with summer flowers. The red roof of the Priory
could just be caught through the trees of the park. She wished the
little pilgrimage were over. A common enough wish, she commented, but
surely not unreasonable.

The picture of those two men came back to her, in spite of every effort
to banish it. Professor Fortescue had affected her as if he had brought
with him a new atmosphere, and disastrous was the result. It seemed as
if Professor Theobald had suddenly become a stranger to her, whom she
criticised, whose commonness of fibre, ah me! whose coarseness, she saw
as she might have seen it in some casual acquaintance. And yet she had
loved this man, she had allowed him to passionately profess love for
her. His companionship, in the deepest sense, had been chosen by her for
life. To sit by and listen to that conversation, feeling every moment
how utterly he and she were, after all, strangers to one another, how
completely unbroken was the solitude that she had craved to dispel--that
had been horrible. What had lain at the root of her conduct? How had she
deceived herself? Was it not for the sake of mere excitement,
distraction? Was it not the sensuous side of her nature that had been
touched, while the rest had been posing in the foreground? But no, that
was only partly true. There had been more in it than that; very much
more, or she could not have deceived herself so completely. It was this
craving to fill the place of her lost art,--but oh, what morbid nonsense
it had all been! Why, for the first time in her life, did she feel
ashamed to meet Professor Fortescue? Obviously, it was not because she
thought he would disapprove of her breaking the social law. It was
because she had fallen below her own standard, because she had been
hypocritical with herself, played herself false, and acted contemptibly,
hatefully! Professor Fortescue's mere presence had hunted out the truth
from its hiding-place. He had made further self-sophistication
impossible. She buried her face in her hands, in an agony of shame. She
had known all along, that this had not been a profound and whole-hearted
sentiment. She had known all along, of what a poor feverish nature it
was; yet she had chosen to persuade herself that it was all, or nearly
all, that she had dreamed of a perfect human relationship. She had tried
to arrange facts in such a light as to simulate that idea. It was so
paltry, so contemptible. Why could she not at least have been honest
with herself, and owned to the nature of the infatuation? That, at any
rate, would have been straightforward. Her self-scorn made the colour
surge into her cheeks and burn painfully over neck and brow. "How little
one knows oneself. Here am I, who rebel against the beliefs of others,
sinning against my own. Here am I, who turn up my nose at the popular
gods, deriding my own private and particular gods in their very temples!
That I have done, and heaven alone knows where I should have stopped in
the wild work, if this had not happened. Professor Fortescue has no need
to speak. His gentleness, his charity, are as rods to scourge one!"

CHAPTER XLIV.

When Professor Fortescue called at the Red House, he found that the
blinds, in the drawing-room, were all half down. Hadria held the
conversation to the subject of his plans. He knew her well enough to
read the meaning of that quiet tone, with a subtle cadence in it, just
at the end of a phrase, that went to his heart. To him it testified to
an unspeakable regret.

It was difficult to define the change in her manner, but it conveyed to
the visitor the impression that she had lost belief in herself, or in
some one; that she had received a severe shock, and knew no longer what
to trust or how to steer. She seemed to speak across some vast spiritual
distance, an effect not produced by reserve or coldness, but by a
wistful, acquiescent, subdued quality, expressive of uncertainty, of
disorder in her conceptions of things.

"How tempting those two easy-chairs look, under the old tree on your
lawn," said the Professor. "Wouldn't it be pleasant to go out?"

Hadria hesitated for a second, and then rose. "Certainly; we will have
tea there."

When they were seated under the shade taking their tea, with the canopy
of walnut leaves above their heads, the Professor saw that Hadria shewed
signs of serious trouble. The haggard lines, the marks of suffering,
were not to be hidden in the clear light of the summer afternoon. He
insensibly shifted his chair so as not to have to gaze at her when he
spoke. That seemed to be a relief to her.

"Valeria is here till the day after to-morrow," she said. "She has gone
for a walk, and has probably forgotten the tea-hour but I hope you will
see her."

"I want to find out what her plans are. It would be pleasant to come
across one another abroad. I wish you were coming too."

"Ah, so do I."

"I suppose it's impossible."

"Absolutely."

"For the mind, there is no tonic like travel," he said.

"It must be a sovereign cure for egoism."

"If anything will cure that disease." Her face saddened.

"You believe it is quite incurable?"

"If it is constitutional."

"Don't you think that sometimes people grow egoistic through having to
fight incessantly for existence--I mean for individual existence?"

"It certainly is the instinct of moral self-preservation. It corresponds
to the raised arm when a blow threatens."

"One has the choice between egoism and extinction."

"It almost amounts to that. Perhaps, after long experience and much
suffering, the individuality may become secure, and the armour no longer
necessary, but this is a bitter process. Most people become extinct, and
then congratulate themselves on self-conquest."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Hadria musingly. "How dangerous it is to
congratulate oneself on anything! One never is so near to folly as
then."

The Professor threw some crumbs to a chaffinch, which had flown down
within a few yards of the tea-table.

"I think you are disposed, at present, to criticise yourself too
mercilessly," he said in a tone that had drawn forth many a confidence.
It was not to be resisted.

"No; that would be difficult."

"Your conscience may accuse you severely, but who of us escapes such
accusations? Be a little charitable with yourself, as you would with
others. Life, you know, is not such an easy game to play. Beginners
must make wrong moves now and then."

There was a long pause.

"It sounds so mild when you put it like that. But I am not a beginner. I
am quite a veteran, yet I am not seasoned. My impulses are more
imperious, more blinding than I had the least idea of." (The words
hastened on.) "Life comes and pulls one by the sleeve; stirs, prompts,
bewilders, tempts in a thousand ways; emotion rises in whirlwinds--and
one is confused, and reels and gropes and stumbles, and then some cruel,
clear day one awakes to find the print of intoxicated footsteps in the
precincts of the sanctuary, and recognises oneself as desecrator."

The Professor leant forward in his low chair. The chaffinch gave a light
chirp, as if to recall him to his duty. Hadria performed it for him. The
chaffinch flew off with the booty.

"There is no suffering so horrible as that which involves remorse or
self-contempt," he said, and his voice trembled. "To have to settle down
to look upon some part of one's action, of one's moral self, with shame
or scorn, is almost intolerable."

"Quite intolerable!"

"We will not extend to ourselves the forbearance due to erring humanity.
This puts us too much on a level with the rest--is that not often the
reason of our harsh self-judgments?"

"Oh, I have no doubt there is something mean and conceited at the bottom
of it!" exclaimed Hadria.

There was a step on the lawn behind them.

The Professor sprang up. He went to meet Valeria and they came to the
table together, talking. Valeria's eyes were bright and her manner
animated. Yes, she was going abroad. It would be delightful to meet
somewhere, if chance favoured them. She thought of Italy. And at that
magic name, they fell into reminiscences of former journeyings; they
talked of towns and temples and palaces, of art, of sunshine; and Hadria
listened silently.

Once, in her girlhood, when she was scarcely sixteen, she had gone with
her parents and Algitha for a tour in Italy. It was a short but vivid