Again, the little frown of pain contracted the Professor's brow.

The dusk had invaded the dinner table, but they had not thought of candles. They went straight out to the still garden. Valeria had a fan, with which she vainly tried to overcome the expression of the atmosphere. She was very low-spirited. Hadria looked ill and exhausted. Little Martha's name was not mentioned. It was too sore a subject.

"I can't bear the idea of leaving you, Hadria, especially when you talk like that. I wish, how I wish, that some way could be found out of this labyrinth. Is this sort of thing to be the end of all the grand new hopes and efforts of women? Is all our force to be killed and overwhelmed in this absurd way?"

"Ah, no, not all, in heaven's name!"

"But if women won't repudiate, in practice, the claims that they hold to be unjust, in theory, how can they hope to escape? We may talk to all eternity, if we don't act."

Hadria shrugged her shoulders.

"Your reasoning is indisputable, but what can one do? There are cases——in short, some things are impossible!"

Valeria was silent. "I have thought, at times, that you might make a better stand," she said at last, clinging still to her theory of the sovereignty of the will.

Hadria did not reply.

The Professor shook his head.

"You know my present conditions," said Hadria, after a silence. "I can't overcome them. But perhaps some one else in my place might overcome them. I confess I don't see how. Do you?"

Valeria hesitated. She made some vague statement about strength of character, and holding on through storm and stress to one's purpose; had not this been the history of all lives worth living?

Hadria agreed, but pressed the practical question. And that Valeria could not answer. She could not bring herself to say that the doctor's warnings ought to be disregarded by Hadria, at the risk of her mother's life. It was not merely a risk, but a practical certainty that any further shock or trouble would be fatal. Valeria was tongue-tied.

"Now do you see why I feel so terrified when anyone proposes to narrow down his existence, even in the smallest particular, for my sake?" asked Hadria. "It is because I see what awful power a human being may acquire of ravaging and of ruling other lives, and I don't want to acquire that power. I see that the tyranny may be perfectly well-intentioned, and indeed scarcely to be called tyranny, for it is but half conscious, yet only the more irresistible for that."

"It is one's own fault if one submits to conscious tyranny," the Professor put in, "and I think tyrant and victim are then much on a par."

"A mere demand can be resisted," Hadria added; "it is grief, real grief, however unreasonable, that brings people to their knees. But, oh, may the day hasten, when people shall cease to grieve when others claim their freedom!"

Valeria smiled. "I don't think you are in much danger of grudging liberty to your neighbours, Hadria; so you need not be so frightened of becoming a vampire, as I think you call it."

"Not now, but how can one tell what the result of years and years of monotonous existence may be, or the effect of example? How did it happen that my mother came to feel aggrieved if her daughters claimed some right of choice in the ordering of their lives? I suppose it is because her mother felt aggrieved if she ventured to call her soul her own."

Valeria laughed.

"But it is true," said Hadria. "Very few of us, if any, are in the least original as regards our sorrowing. We follow the fashion. We are not so presumptuous as to decide for ourselves what shall afflict us."

"Or what shall transport us with joy," added Valeria, with a shrug.

"Still less perhaps. Tradition says 'Weep, this is the moment,' or 'Rejoice, the hour has come,' and we chant our dirge or kindle our bonfires accordingly. Why, it means a little martyrdom to the occasional sinner who selects his own occasion for sorrow or for joy."

Valeria laughed at the notion of Hadria's being under the dictatorship of tradition, or of anything else, as to her emotions.

But Hadria held that everybody was more or less subject to the thraldom. And the thraldom increased as the mind and the experience narrowed. And as the narrowing process progressed, she said, the exhausting or vampire quality grew and grew.

"I have seen it, I have seen it! Those who have been starved in life, levy a sort of tax on the plenty of others, in the instinctive effort to replenish their own empty treasure-house. Only that is impossible. One can gain no riches in that fashion. One can only reduce one's victim to a beggary like one's own."

Valeria was perturbed.

"The more I see of life, the more bitter a thing it seems to be a woman! And one of the discouraging features of it is, that women are so ready to oppress each other!"

"Because they have themselves suffered oppression," said the Professor. "It is a law that we cannot evade; if we are injured, we pay back the injury, whether we will or not, upon our neighbours. If we are blessed, we bless, but if we are cursed, we curse."

"These moral laws, or laws of nature, or whatever one likes to call them, seem to be stern as death!" exclaimed Valeria. "I suppose we are all inheriting the curse that has been laid upon our mothers through so many ages."

"We are not free from the shades of our grandmothers," said Hadria, "only I hope a little (when I have not been to the Vicarage for some time) that we may be less of a hindrance and an obsession to our granddaughters than our grandmothers have been to us."

"Ah! that way lies hope!" cried the Professor.

"I wish, I wish I could believe!" Valeria exclaimed. "But I was born ten years too early for the faith of this generation."

"It is you who have helped to give this generation its faith," said Hadria.

"But have you real hope and real faith, in your heart of hearts? Tell me, Hadria."

Hadria looked startled.

"Ah! I knew it. Women don't really believe that the cloud will lift. If they really believed what they profess, they would prove it. They would not submit and resign themselves. Oh, why don't you shew what a woman can do, Hadria?"

Hadria gave a faint smile.

She did not speak for some time, and when she did, her words seemed to have no direct reference to Valeria's question.

"I believe that there are thousands and thousands of women whose lives have run on parallel lines with mine."

She recalled a strange and grotesque vision, or waking-dream, that she had dreamt a few nights before: of a vast abyss, black and silent, which had to be filled up to the top with the bodies of women, hurled down to the depths of the pit of darkness, in order that the survivors might, at last, walk over in safety. Human bodies take but little room, and the abyss seemed to swallow them, as some greedy animal its prey. But Hadria knew, in her dream, that some day it would have claimed its last victim, and the surface would be level and solid, so that people would come and go, scarcely remembering that beneath their feet was once a chasm into which throbbing lives had to descend, to darkness and a living death.

Valeria looked anxious and ill at ease. She watched Hadria's face.

She was longing to urge her to leave Craddock Dene, but was deterred by the knowledge of the uselessness of such advice. Hadria could not take it.

"I chafe against these situations!" cried Valeria. "I am so unused, in my own life, to such tethers and limitations. They would drive me crazy!"

"Oh," Hadria exclaimed, with an amused smile, "this is a new cry!"

"I don't care," said Valeria discontentedly. "I never supposed that one could be tied hand and foot, in this way. I should never stand it. It is intolerable!"

"These are what you have frequently commended to me as 'home ties,'" said Hadria.

"Oh, but it is impossible!"

"You attack the family!" cried the Professor.

"If the family makes itself ridiculous——?"

The Professor and Hadria laughed. Valeria was growing excited.

"The natural instinct of man to get his fun at his neighbour's expense meets with wholesome rebuffs in the outer world," said the Professor, "but in the family it has its chance. That's why the family is so popular."

Valeria, with her wonted capriciousness, veered round in defence of the institution that she had been just jeering at.

"Well, after all, it is the order of Nature to have one's fun at the expense of someone, and I don't believe we shall ever be able to practise any other principle, I mean on a national scale, however much we may progress."

"Oh, but we shan't progress unless we do," said the Professor.

"You are always paradoxical."

"There is no paradox here. I am just as certain as I am of my own existence, that real, solid, permanent progress is impossible to any people until they recognise, as a mere truism, that whatever is gained by cruelty, be it towards the humblest thing alive, is not gain, but the worst of loss."

"Oh, you always go too far!" cried Valeria.

"I don't admit that in a horror of cruelty, it is possible to go too far," the Professor replied. "Cruelty is the one unpardonable sin." He passed his hand across his brow, with a weary gesture, as if the pressure of misery and tumult and anguish in the world, were more than he could bear.

"You won't give up your music, Hadria," Valeria said, at the end of a long cogitation.

"It is a forlorn sort of pursuit," Hadria answered, with a whimsical smile, "but I will do all I can." Valeria seemed relieved.

"And you will not give up hope?"

"Hope? Of what?"

"Oh, of—of——. What an absurd question!"

Hadria smiled. "It is better to face facts, I think, than to shroud them away. After all, it is only by the rarest chance that character and conditions happen to suit each other so well that the powers can be developed. They are generally crushed. One more or less——." Hadria gave a shrug.

The Professor broke in, abruptly.

"It is exactly the one more or less that sends the balance up or down, that decides the fate of men and nations. An individual often counts more than a generation. If that were not so, nothing would be possible, and hope would be insane."

"Perhaps it is!" said Hadria beneath her breath.

The Professor had risen. He heard the last words, but made no remonstrance. Yet there was a something in his expression that gave comfort.

"I fear I shall have to be going back," he said, looking at his watch. As he spoke, the first notes of a nightingale stole out of the shrubbery. Voices were hushed, and the three stood listening spellbound, to the wonderful impassioned song. Hadria marvelled at its strange serenity, despite the passion, and speculated vaguely as to the possibility of a paradox of the same kind in the soul of a human being. Passion and serenity? Had not the Professor combined these apparent contradictions?

There was ecstasy so supreme in the bird's note that it had become calm again, like great heat that affects the senses, as with frost, or a flooded river that runs swift and smooth for very fulness.

Presently, a second nightingale began to answer from a distant tree, and the garden was filled with the wild music. One or two stars had already twinkled out.

"I ought really to be going," said the Professor.

But he lingered still. His eyes wandered anxiously to Hadria's white face. He said good-night to Valeria, and then he and Hadria walked to the gate together.

"You will come back and see us at Craddock Dene soon after you return, won't you?" she said wistfully.

"Of course I will. And I hope that meanwhile, you will set to work to get strong and well. All your leisure ought to be devoted to that object, for the present. I should be so delighted to hear from you now and again, when you have a spare moment and the spirit moves you. I will write and tell you how I fare, if I may. If, at any time, I can be of service to you, don't forget how great a pleasure it would be to me to render it. I hope if ever I come back to England——"

"When you come back," Hadria corrected, hastily.

——"that we may meet oftener."

"Indeed, that will be something to look forward to!"

They exchanged the hearty, lingering handshake of trusty friendship and deep affection. The last words, the last good wishes, were spoken, the last wistful effort was made of two human souls to bid each other be of good cheer, and to bring to one another comfort and hope. Hadria leant on the gate, a lonely figure in the dim star-light, watching the form that had already become shadowy, retreating along the road and gradually losing itself in the darkness.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

Autumn had come round again. Craddock Dene had calmed down after the exciting event of the summer. Martha's little cottage was now standing empty, the virginia creeper trailing wildly, in thick festoons and dangling sprays over the porch and creeping up round the windows, even threatening to cover them with a ruddy screen, since now the bright little face no longer looked out of the latticed panes, and the cottage was given over to dust and spiders.

Mrs. Temperley was often seen by the villagers passing along the road towards Craddock. She would sometimes pause at the cottage, to gather a few of the flowers that still came up in the tiny garden. It was said that she gathered them to lay on Ellen Jervis's grave.

"Dear, dear, she do take on about that child!" Dodge used to say, as she passed up the street of Craddock. And Mrs. Gullick, good soul, would shake her head and express her sympathy, in spite of not "holding" with Mrs. Temperley's "ways."

Her poorer neighbours understood far more than the others could understand, how sorely she was grieving about the child. Because she said nothing on the subject, it was generally supposed that she had ceased to care. After all, it was an act of charity that she had undertaken, on an impulse, and it was quite as well that she should be relieved of the responsibility.

Hannah used to write regularly, to let her know how Martha was. Professor Theobald had directed Hannah to do this. The nurse had to admit that he was very good and very devoted to the child. She throve in her new home, and seemed perfectly happy.

Hadria was now delivered over to the tender mercies of her own thoughts. Her memories burnt, as corrosive acids, in her brain. She could find no shadow of protection from her own contempt. There was not one nook or cranny into which that ruthless self-knowledge could not throw its cruel glare. In the hours of darkness, in the haunted hours of the early morning, she and her memories played horrible games with one another. She was hunted, they the hunters. There was no thought on which she could rest, no consoling remembrance. She often wished that she had followed her frequent impulse to tell Miss Du Prel the whole wretched story. But she could not force herself to touch the subject through the painful medium of speech. Valeria knew that Hadria was capable of any outward law-breaking, but she would never be prepared for the breaking of her own inner law, the real canon on which she had always laid so much stress. And then she had shrunk from the idea of betraying a secret not solely her own. If she told the story, Valeria would certainly guess the name. She felt a still greater longing that Professor Fortescue should know the facts; he would be able to help her to face it all, and to take the memory into her life and let its pain eat out what was base and evil in her soul. He would give her hope; his experience, his extraordinary sympathy, would enable him to understand it all, better than she did herself. If he would look at this miserable episode unflinchingly, and still hold out his hand to her, as she knew he would, and still believe in her, then she might believe still in herself, in her power of rising after this lost illusion, this shock of self-detection, and of going on again, sadder, and perhaps stronger; but if he thought that since she was capable of a real treason against her gods, that she was radically unsound at heart, and a mass of sophistication, then—Hadria buried her face in the pillow. She went through so often now, these paroxysms of agony. Do what she would, look where she might, she saw no relief. She was afraid to trust herself. She was afraid to accept her own suggestions of comfort, if ever a ray of it came to her, lest it should be but another form of self-deception, another proof of moral instability. In her eternal tossing to and fro, in mental anguish, the despairing idea often assailed her: that after all, it did not matter what she did or thought. She was but an atom of the vast whole, a drop in the ocean of human life.

She had no end or motive in anything. She could go on doing what had to be done to the last, glad if she might bring a little pleasure in so acting, but beyond that, what was there to consider? The wounds to her vanity and her pride ached a little, at times, but the infinitely deeper hurt of disillusion overwhelmed the lesser feeling. She was too profoundly sad to care for that trivial mortification.

Sometimes, Professor Fortescue used to write to Hadria, and she looked forward to these letters as to nothing else. She heard from Valeria also, who had met the Professor at Siena. She said he did not look as well as she had hoped to find him. She could not see that he had gained at all, since leaving England. He was cheerful, and enjoying sunny Italy as much as his strength would allow. Valeria was shocked to notice how very weak he was. He had a look in his face that she could not bear to see. If he did not improve soon, she thought of trying to persuade him to return home to see his doctor again. When one was ill, home was the best place after all.

"You and Professor Fortescue," she said, in closing her letter, "are the two people I love in the world. You are all that I have in life to cling to. Write to me, dearest Hadria, for I am very anxious and wretched."

The affairs of life and death mix themselves incongruously enough, in this confused world. The next news that stirred the repose of Craddock Dene, was that of Algitha's engagement to Wilfrid Burton. In spite of his socialistic views, Mrs. Fullerton was satisfied with the marriage, because Wilfrid Burton was well-connected and had good expectations. The mother had feared that Algitha would never marry at all, and she not only raised no objection, but seemed relieved. Wilfrid Burton had come down to stay at the Red House, during one of Algitha's holidays, and it was then that the betrothal had taken place. The marriage promised to be happy, for the couple were deeply attached and had interests in common. They intended to continue to work on the same lines after they were married. Both parents were favourably impressed by the son-in-law elect, and the Cottage became the scene of exciting arguments on the subject of socialism. Mr. Fullerton insisted on holding Wilfrid Burton responsible for every sort of theory that had ever been attributed not merely to socialists, but to communists, anarchists, collectivists, nihilists, and the rest; and nothing would persuade him that the young man was not guilty of all these contradictory enormities of thought. Wilfrid's personality, however, overcame every prejudice against him, on this account, after the first meeting.

Joseph Fleming, among others, congratulated Algitha heartily on her engagement.

"I can see you are very happy," he said naively. She laughed and coloured.

"Indeed I ought to be. Life is gloriously worth living, when it is lived in the presence of good and generous souls."

"I wish I had married," said Joseph pensively.

"It is not too late to mend," suggested Algitha.

"How reckless you are!" exclaimed her sister. "How can you recommend marriage in the abstract? You happen to have met just the right person, but Mr. Fleming hasn't, it would seem."

"If one person can be so fortunate, so can another," said Algitha.

"Why tempt Providence? Rather bear the ills you have——"

"I am surprised to hear you take a gloomy view of anything, Mrs. Temperley," said Joseph; "I always thought you so cheerful. You say funnier things than any lady I have ever met, except an Irish girl who used to sing comic songs."

Both sisters laughed.

"How do you know that, in the intervals of her comic songs, that girl has not a gloomy disposition?" asked Hadria.

"Oh no, you can see that she is without a care in the world; she is like Miss Fullerton, always full of good cheer and kindness."

"Had she also slums to cheer her up?" asked Hadria.

"No, not at all. She never does anything in particular."

"I am surprised that she is cheerful then," said Algitha. "It won't last."

"It is her slums that keep my sister in such good spirits," said Hadria.

"Really! Well, if you are fond of that sort of thing, Mrs. Temperley, there are some nasty enough places at the lower end of Craddock——"

"Oh, it isn't that one clings to slums for slums' sake," cried Hadria laughing.

"I am afraid they are already overrun with visitors," Joseph added. "There are so many Miss Walkers."

It was not long after this conversation, that Craddock Dene was thrilled by another piece of matrimonial news. Joseph Fleming was announced to be engaged to the Irish girl who sang comic songs. She was staying with Mrs. Jordan at the time. And the Irish girl, whose name was Kathleen O'Halloran, came and sang her comic songs to Craddock Dene, while Joseph sat and beamed in pride and happiness, and the audience rippled with laughter.

Kathleen was very pretty and very fascinating, with her merry, kind-hearted ways, and she became extremely popular with her future neighbours.

Little changes had taken place in the village, through death or marriage or departure. Dodge had laid to rest many victims of influenza, which visited the neighbourhood with great severity. Among the slain, poor Dodge had to number his own wife. The old man was broken down with his loss. He loved to talk over her illness and death with Hadria, whose presence seemed to comfort him more than anything else, as he assured her, in his quaint dialect.

Sometimes, returning through the Craddock Woods, Hadria would pass through the churchyard on her way home, after her walk, and there she would come upon Dodge patiently at work upon some new grave, the sound of his pickaxe breaking the autumn silence, ominously. His head was more bent than of yore, and his hair was whiter. His old face would brighten up when he heard Hadria's footstep, and he would pause, a moment or two, for a gossip. The conversation generally turned upon his old "missus," who was buried under a yew tree, near the wicket gate. Then he would ask after Hadria's belongings; about her father and mother, about Hubert, and the boys. Mr. Fullerton had made the gravedigger's acquaintance, and won his hearty regard by many a chat and many a little kindness. Dodge had never ceased to regret that Martha had been taken away from Craddock. The place seemed as if it had gone to sleep, he said. Things weren't as they used to be.

Hadria would often go to see the old man, trying to cheer him and minister to his growing ailments. His shrewdness was remarkable. Mr. Fullerton quoted Dodge as an authority on matters of practical philosophy, and the old gravedigger became a sort of oracle at the Cottage. Wilfrid Burton complained that he was incessantly confronted with some saying of Dodge, and from this there was no appeal.

The news from Italy was still far from reassuring. Valeria was terribly anxious. But she felt thankful, she said, to be with the invalid and able to look after him. The doctors would not hear of his returning to England at the approach of winter. It would be sheer suicide. He must go further south. Valeria had met some old friends, among them Madame Bertaux, and they had decided to go on together, perhaps to Naples or Sorrento. Her friends had all fallen in love with the Professor, as every one did. They were a great help and comfort to her. If it were not for the terrible foreboding, Valeria said she would be perfectly happy. The Professor's presence seemed to change the very atmosphere. He spoke often about Hadria, and over and over again asked Valeria to watch over her and help her. And he spoke often about his wife. Valeria confessed that, at one time, she used to be horribly and shamefully jealous of this wife, whom he worshipped so faithfully, but now that feeling had left her. She was thankful for the great privilege of his friendship. A new tone had come over Valeria's letters, of late; the desperate, almost bitter element had passed away, and something approaching serenity had taken its place.

No one, she said, could be in the Professor's presence every day, and remain exactly the same as before. She saw his potent, silent influence upon every creature who crossed his path. He came and went among his fellows, quietly, beneficently, and each was the better for having met him, more or less, according to the fineness and sensitiveness of the nature.

"My love for him," said Valeria, "used at one time to be a great trouble to me. It made me restless and unhappy. Now I am glad of it, and though there must be an element of pain in a hopeless love, yet I hold myself fortunate to have cherished it."

Hadria received this letter from the postman when she was coming out of Dodge's cottage.

It threw her into a conflict of strong and painful feeling: foreboding, heart-sickness, a longing so strong to see her friends that it seemed as if she must pack up instantly and go to them, and through it all, a sense of loneliness that was almost unbearable. How she envied Valeria! To love with her whole heart, without a shadow of doubt; to have that element of warmth in her life which could never fail her, like sunshine to the earth. Among the cruelest elements of Hadria's experience had been that emptying of her heart; the rebuff to the need for love, the conviction that she was to go through life without its supreme emotion. Professor Theobald had thrown away what might have been a master-passion. The outlook was so blank and cold, so unutterably lonely! She looked back to the days at Dunaghee, as if several lifetimes had passed between her and them. What illusions they had all harboured in those strange old days!

"Do you remember our famous discussion on Emerson in the garret?" she said to Algitha.

"Do I? It is one of the episodes of our youth that stands out most distinctly."

"And how about Emerson's doctrine? Are we the makers of our circumstances? Does our fate 'fit us like a glove?'"

Algitha looked thoughtful. "I doubt it," she said.

"Yet you have brilliantly done what you meant to do."

"My own experience does not overshadow my judgment entirely, I hope," said Algitha. "I have seen too much of a certain tragic side of life to be able to lay down a law of that sort. I can't believe, for instance, that among all those millions in the East End, not one man or woman, for all these ages, was born with great capacities, which better conditions might have allowed to come to fruition. I think you were right, after all. It is a matter of relation."

The autumn was unusually fine, and the colours sumptuous beyond description. The vast old trees that grew so tall and strong, in the genial English soil, burnt away their summer life in a grand conflagration.

Hubert had successfully carried the day with regard to the important case which had taken him abroad, and had now returned to Craddock Dene. Henriette came to stay at the Red House.

She followed her brother, one day, into the smoking-room, and there, with much tact and circumlocution, gave him to understand that she thought Hadria was becoming more sensible; that she was growing more like other people, less opinionated, wiser, and better in every way.

"Hadria was always very sweet, of course," said Henriette, "but she had the faults of her qualities, as we all have. You have had your trials, dear Hubert, but I rejoice to believe that Hadria will give you little further cause for pain or regret." Hubert made no reply. He placed the tips of his fingers together and looked into the fire.

"I think that the companionship of Lady Engleton has been of great service to Hadria," he observed, after a long pause.

"Unquestionably," assented Henriette. "She has had an enormous influence upon her. She has taught Hadria to see that one may hold one's own ideas quietly, without flying in everybody's face. Lady Engleton is a pronounced agnostic, yet she never misses a Sunday at Craddock Church, and I am glad to see that Hadria is following her example. It must be a great satisfaction to you, Hubert. People used to talk unpleasantly about Hadria's extremely irregular attendance. It is such a mistake to offend people's ideas, in a small place like this."

"That is what I told Hadria," said Hubert, "and her mother has been speaking seriously to her on the subject. Hadria made no opposition, rather to my surprise. She said that she would go as regularly as our dining-room clock, if it gave us all so much satisfaction."

"How charming!" cried Henriette benevolently, "and how characteristic!"

As Hadria sank in faith and hope, she rose in the opinion of her neighbours. She was never nearer to universal unbelief than now, when the orthodox began to smile upon her.

Life presented itself to her as a mere welter of confused forces. If goodness, or aspiration, or any godlike thing arose, for a moment—like some shipwrecked soul with hands out-stretched above the waves—swiftly it sank again submerged, leaving only a faint ripple on the surface, soon overswept and obliterated.

She could detect no light on the face of the troubled waters. Looking around her at other lives, she saw the story written in different characters, but always the same; hope, struggle, failure. The pathos of old age wrung her heart; the sorrows of the poor, the lonely, the illusions of the seeker after wealth, the utter vanity of the objects of men's pursuit, and the end of it all!

"I wonder what is the secret of success, Hadria?"

"Speaking generally, I should say to have a petty aim."

"Then if one succeeds after a long struggle," said Algitha pensively.

"One finds it, I doubt not, the dismalest of failures."

A great cloud of darkness seemed to have descended over the earth. Hadria felt cut off even from Nature. The splendours of the autumn appeared at a vast distance from her. They belonged to another world. She could not get near them. Mother earth had deserted her child.

A superficial apathy was creeping over her, below which burnt a slow fire of pain. But the greater the apathy, which expressed itself outwardly in a sort of cheerful readiness to take things as they came, the more delighted everybody appeared to be with the repentant sinner. Her associates seemed to desire earnestly that she should go to church, as they did, in her best bonnet——and why not? She would get a best bonnet, as ridiculous as they pleased, and let Mr. Walker do his worst. What did it matter? Who was the better or the worse for what she thought or how she acted? What mattered it, whether she were consistent or not? What mattered it if she seemed, by her actions, to proclaim her belief in dogmas that meant nothing to her, except as interesting products of the human mind? She had not enough faith to make it worth while to stand alone.

Lord Engleton said he thought it right to go to church regularly, for the sake of setting an example to the masses, a sentiment which always used to afford Hadria more amusement than many intentional witticisms.

She went often to the later service, when the autumn twilight lay heavy and sad upon the churchyard, and the peace of evening stole in through the windows of the church. Then, as the sublime poetry of psalmist or prophet rolled through the Norman arches, or the notes of the organ stole out of the shadowed chancel, a spirit of repose would creep into the heart of the listener, and the tired thoughts would take a more rhythmic march. She felt nearer to her fellows, at such moments, than at any other. Her heart went out to them, in wistful sympathy. They seemed to be standing together then, one and all, at the threshold of the great Mystery, and though they might be parted ever so widely by circumstance, temperament, mental endowment, manner of thought, yet after all, they were brethren and fellow sufferers; they shared the weakness, the longing, the struggle of life; they all had affections, ambitions, heart-breakings, sins, and victories; the differences were slight and transient, in the presence of the vast unknown, the Ultimate Reality for which they were all groping in the darkness. This sense of brotherhood was strongest with regard to the poorer members of the congregation: the labourers with their toil-stained hands and bent heads, the wives, the weary mothers, their faces seamed with the ceaseless strain of child-bearing, and hard work, and care and worry. In their prematurely ageing faces, in their furrowed brows, Hadria could trace the marks of Life's bare and ruthless hand, which had pressed so heavily on those whose task it had been to bestow the terrible gift. Here the burden had crushed soul and flesh; here that insensate spirit of Life had worked its will, gratified its rage to produce and reproduce, it mattered not what in the semblance of the human, so long only as that wretched semblance repeated itself, and repeated itself again, ad nauseam, while it destroyed the creatures which it used for its wild purpose——

And the same savage story was written, once more, on the faces of the better dressed women: worry, weariness, apathy, strain; these were marked unmistakeably, after the first freshness of youth had been driven away, and the features began to take the mould of the habitual thoughts and the habitual impressions.

And on these faces, there was a certain pettiness and coldness not observable on those of the poorer women.

Often, when one of the neighbours called and found Hadria alone, some chance word of womanly sympathy would touch a spring, and then a sad, narrow little story of trouble and difficulty would be poured out; a revelation of the bewildered, toiling, futile existences that were being passed beneath a smooth appearance; of the heart-ache and heroism and misplaced sacrifice, of the ruined lives that a little common sense and common kindness might have saved; the unending pain and trouble about matters entirely trivial, entirely absurd; the ceaseless travail to bring forth new elements of trouble for those who must inherit the deeds of to-day; the burdened existences agonizing to give birth to new existences, equally burdened, which in their turn, were to repeat the ceaseless oblation to the gods of Life.

"Futile?" said Lady Engleton. "I think women are generally fools, entre nous; that is why they so often fill their lives with sound and fury, accomplishing nothing."

Hadria felt that this was a description of her own life, as well as that of most of her neighbours.

"I can understand so well how it is that women become conventional," she said, apparently without direct reference to the last remark, "it is so useless to take the trouble to act on one's own initiative. It annoys everybody frightfully, and it accomplishes nothing, as you say."

"My dear Hadria, you alarm me!" cried Lady Engleton, laughing. "You must really be very ill indeed, if you have come to this conclusion!"

In looking over some old papers and books, one afternoon, Hadria came upon the little composition called Futility, which a mood had called forth at Dunaghee, years ago. She had almost forgotten about it, and in trying it over, she found that it was like trying over the work of some other person.

It expressed with great exactness the feelings that overwhelmed her now, whenever she let her imagination dwell upon the lives of women, of whatever class and whatever kind. Futility! The mournful composition, with its strange modern character, its suggestion of striving and confusion and pain, expressed as only music could express, the yearning and the sadness that burden so many a woman's heart to-day.

She knew that the music was good, and that now she could compose music infinitely better. The sharpness of longing for her lost art cut through her. She half turned from the piano and then went back, as a moth to the flame.

How was this eternal tumult to be stilled? Facts were definite and clear, there was no room for doubt or for hope. These facts then had to be dealt with. How did other women deal with them? Not so much better than she did, after all, as it appeared when one was allowed to see beneath the amiable surface of their lives. They were all spinning round and round, in a dizzy little circle, all whirling and toiling and troubling, to no purpose.

Even Lady Engleton, who appeared so bright and satisfied, had her secret misery which spoilt her life. She had beauty, talent, wealth, everything to make existence pleasant and satisfactory, but she had allowed externals and unessentials to encroach upon it, to govern her actions, to usurp the place of her best powers, to creep into her motives, till there was little germ and heart of reality left, and she was beginning to feel starved and aimless in the midst of what might have been plenty. Lady Engleton had turned to her neighbour at the Red House in an instinctive search for sympathy, as the more genuine side of her nature began to cry out against the emptiness of her graceful and ornate existence. Hadria was startled by the revelation. Hubert had always held up Lady Engleton as a model of virtue and wisdom, and perfect contentment. Yet she too, it turned out, for all her smiles and her cheerfulness, was busy and weary with futilities. She too, like the fifty daughters of Danaus, was condemned to the idiot's labour of eternally drawing water in sieves from fathomless wells.



CHAPTER XLIX.

Algitha's marriage took place almost immediately. There was no reason for delay. She stayed at the Cottage, and was married at Craddock Church, on one of the loveliest mornings of the year, as the villagers noticed with satisfaction. Both sisters had become favourites in the neighbourhood among the poorer people, and the inhabitants mustered to see the wedding.

It was only for her mother's sake that Algitha had consented to a conventional ceremony. She said that she and Wilfrid both hated the whole barbaric show. They submitted only because there was no help for it. Algitha's mother would have broken her heart if they had been bound merely by the legal tie, as she and Wilfrid desired.

"Indeed, the only tie that we respect is that of our love and faith. If that failed, we should scorn to hold one another in unwilling bondage. We are not entirely without self-respect."

The couple were to take a tour in Italy, where they hoped to meet Valeria and Professor Fortescue. Joseph Fleming was married, almost at the same time, to his merry Irish girl.

The winter came suddenly. Some terrific gales had robbed the trees of their lingering yellow leaves, and the bare branches already shewed their exquisite tracery against the sky. Heavy rain followed, and the river was swollen, and there were floods that made the whole country damp, and rank, and terribly depressing. Mrs. Fullerton felt the influence of the weather, and complained of neuralgia and other ailments. She needed watching very carefully, and plenty of cheerful companionship. This was hard to supply. In struggling to belie her feelings, day after day, Hadria feared, at times, that she would break down disastrously. She was frightened at the strange haunting ideas that came to her, the dread and nameless horror that began to prey upon her, try as she would to protect herself from these nerve-torments, which she could trace so clearly to their causes. If only, instead of making one half insane and stupid, the strain of grief would but kill one outright, and be done with it!

Old Dodge was a good friend to Hadria, at this time. He saw that something was seriously wrong, and he managed to convey his affectionate concern in a thousand little kindly ways that brought comfort to her loneliness, and often filled her eyes with sudden tears. Nor was he the only friend she had in the village, whose sympathy was given in generous measure. Hadria had been able to be of use, at the time of the disastrous epidemic which had carried off so many of the population, and since then had been admitted to more intimate relationship with the people; learning their troubles and their joys, their anxieties, and the strange pathos of their lives. She learnt, at this time, the quality of English kindness and English sympathy, which Valeria used to say was equalled nowhere in the world.

Before the end of the winter, Algitha and her husband returned.

"I'm real glad, mum, that I be," said Dodge, "to think as you has your sister with you again. There ain't nobody like one's kith and kin, wen things isn't quite as they should be, as one may say. Miss Fullerton—which I means Mrs. Burton—is sure to do you a sight o' good, bless 'er."

Dodge was right. Algitha's healthy nature, strengthened by happiness and success, was of infinite help to Hadria, in her efforts to shake off the symptoms that had made her frightened of herself. She did not know what tricks exhausted nerves might play upon her, or what tortures they had in store for her.

Algitha's judgments were inclined to be definite and clear-cut to the point of hardness. She did not know the meaning of over-wrought nerves, nor the difficulties of a nature more imaginative than her own. She had found her will-power sufficient to meet all the emergencies of her life, and she was disposed to feel a little contemptuous, especially of late, at a persistent condition of difficulty and confusion. Her impulse was to attack such a condition and bring it to order, by force of will. The active temperament is almost bound to misunderstand the imaginative or artistic spirit and its difficulties. A real cul de sac was to Algitha almost unthinkable. There must be some means of finding one's way out.

Hadria's present attitude amazed and irritated her. She objected to her regular church-going, as dishonest. Was she not, for the sake of peace and quietness, professing that which she did not believe? And how was it that she was growing more into favour with the Jordans and Walkers and all the narrow, wooden-headed people? Surely an ominous sign.

After the long self-suppression, the long playing of a fatiguing role, Hadria felt an unspeakable relief in Algitha's presence. To her, at least, she need not assume a false cheerfulness.

Algitha noticed, with anxiety, the change that was coming over her sister, the spirit of tired acquiescence, the insidious creeping in of a slightly cynical view of things, in place of the brave, believing, imaginative outlook that she had once held towards life. This cynicism was more or less superficial however, as Algitha found when they had a long and intimate conversation, one evening in Hadria's room, by her fire; but it was painful to Algitha to hear the hopeless tones of her sister's voice, now that she was speaking simply and sincerely, without bitterness, but without what is usually called resignation.

"No; I don't think it is all for the best," said Hadria. "I think, as far as my influence goes, it is all for the worst. What fatal argument my life will give to those who are seeking reasons to hold our sex in the old bondage! My struggles, my failure, will add to the staggering weight that we all stumble under. I have hindered more—that is the bitter thing—by having tried and failed, than if I had never tried at all. Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Gordon herself, has given less arguments to the oppressors than I."

"But why? But how?" cried Algitha incredulously.

"Because no one can point to them, as they will to me, and say, 'See, what a ghastly failure! See how feeble after all, are these pretentious women of the new order, who begin by denying the sufficiency of the life assigned them, by common consent, and end by failing in that and in the other which they aspire to. What has become of all the talent and all the theories and resolves?' And so the next girl who dares to have ambitions, and dares to scorn the role of adventuress that society allots to her, will have the harder fate because of my attempt. Now nothing in the whole world," cried Hadria, her voice losing the even tones in which she had been speaking, "nothing in the whole world will ever persuade me that that is all for the best!"

"I never said it was, but when a thing has to be, why not make the best of it?"

"And so persuade people that all is well, when all is not well! That's exactly what women always do and always have done, and plume themselves upon it. And so this ridiculous farce is kept up, because these wretched women go smiling about the world, hugging their stupid resignation to their hearts, and pampering up their sickly virtue, at the expense of their sex. Hang their virtue!"

Algitha laughed.

"It is somewhat self-regarding certainly, in spite of the incessant renunciation and sacrifice."

"Oh, self-sacrifice in a woman, is always her easiest course. It is the nearest approach to luxury that society allows her," cried Hadria, irascibly.

"It is most refreshing to hear you exaggerate, once more, with the old vigour," her sister cried.

"If I have a foible, it is under-statement," returned Hadria, with a half-smile.

"Then I think you haven't a foible," said Algitha.

"That I am ready to admit; but seriously, women seem bent on proving that you may treat them as you like, but they will 'never desert Mr. Micawber.'"

Algitha smiled.

"They are so mortally afraid of getting off the line and doing what might not be quite right. They take such a morbid interest in their own characters. They are so particular about their souls. The female soul is such a delicate creation—like a bonnet. Look at a woman trimming and poking at her bonnet—that's exactly how she goes on with her soul."

Algitha laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"It has trained her in a sort of heroism, at any rate," she said.

"Heroism! talk of Spartan boys, they are not in it! A woman will endure martyrdom with the expression of a seraph,—an extremely aggravating seraph. She looks after her soul as if it were the ultimate fact of the universe. She will trim and preen that ridiculous soul, though the heavens fall and the rest of her sex perish."

"Come now, I think there are exceptions."

"A few, but very few. It is a point of honour, a sacred canon. Women will go on patiently drawing water in sieves, and pretend they are usefully employed because it tires them!"

"They believe it," said Algitha.

"Perhaps so. But it's very silly."

"It is really well meant. It is a submission to the supposed will of heaven."

"A poor compliment to Heaven!" Hadria exclaimed.

"Well, it is not, of course, your conception nor mine of the will of heaven, but it is their's."

Hadria shrugged her shoulders. "I wish women would think a little less of Heaven in the abstract, and a little more of one another, in the concrete."

"Nobody has ever taught them to think of one another; on the contrary, they have always been trained to think of men, and of Heaven, and their souls. That training accounts for their attitude towards their own sex."

"I suppose so. A spirit of sisterhood among women would have sadly upset the social scheme, as it has been hitherto conceived. Indeed the social scheme has made such a spirit well-nigh impossible."

"A conquering race, if it is wise, governs its subjects largely through their internecine squabbles and jealousies. But what if they combine——?"

"Ah!" Hadria drew a deep sigh. "I wish the moment of sisterhood were a little nearer."

"Heaven hasten it!" cried Algitha.

"Perhaps it is nearer than we imagine. Women are quick learners, when they begin. But, oh, it is hard sometimes to make them begin. They are so annoyingly abject; so painfully diffident. It is their pride to be humble. The virtuous worm won't even turn!"

"Poor worm! It sometimes permits itself the relief of verbal expression!" observed Algitha.

Hadria laughed. "There are smiling, villainous worms, who deny themselves even that!"

After a long silence, Algitha taking the poker in her hand and altering the position of some of the coals, asked what Hadria meant to do in the future; how she was going to "turn," if that was her intention.

"Oh, I cannot even turn!" replied Hadria. "Necessity knows no law. The one thing I won't do, is to be virtuously resigned. And I won't 'make the best of it.'"

Algitha laughed. "I am relieved to hear so wrong-headed a sentiment from you. It sounds more like your old self."

"I won't be called wrong-headed on this account," said Hadria. "If my life is to bear testimony to the truth, its refrain ought to be, 'This is wrong, this is futile, this is cruel, this is damnable.' I shall warn every young woman I come across, to beware, as she grows older, and has people in her clutches, not to express her affection by making unlimited demands on the beloved objects, nor by turning the world into a prison-house for those whom she honours with her devotion. The hope of the future lies in the rising generation. You can't alter those who have matured in the old ideas. It is for us to warn. I won't pretend to think that things are all right, when I know they are not all right. That would be mean. What is called making the best of it, would testify all the wrong way. My life, instead of being a warning, would be a sort of a trap. Let me at least play the humble role of scarecrow. I am in excellent condition for it," she added, grasping her thin wrist.

Algitha shook her head anxiously.

"I fear," she said, "that the moral that most people will draw will be: 'Follow in the path of Mrs. Gordon, however distasteful it may seem to you, and whatever temptations you feel towards a more independent life. If you don't, you will come to grief.'"

"Then you think it would be better to be 'resigned,' and look after one's own soul?"

"Heaven knows what would be better!" Algitha exclaimed. "But one thing is certain, you ought to look after your body, for the present at any rate."



CHAPTER L.

Hadria had found the autumn saddening, and the winter tempt her to morbid thoughts, but the coming of spring made her desperate. It would not allow her to be passive, it would not permit her emotions to lie prone and exhausted. Everything was waking, and she must wake too, to the bitterest regret and the keenest longings of which she was capable.

She had tried to avoid everything that would arouse these futile emotions; she had attempted to organise her life on new lines, persisting in her attitude of non-surrender, but winning, as far as she was able, the rest that, at present, could only be achieved by means of a sort of inward apathy. It was an instinctive effort of self-preservation. She was like a fierce fire, over which ashes have been heaped to keep down the flames, and check its ardour. She had to eat her heart out in dullness, to avoid its flaming out in madness. But the spring came and carried her away on its torrent. She might as well have tried to resist an avalanche. She thought that she had given up all serious thought of music; the surrender was necessary, and she had judged it folly to tempt herself by further dallying with it. It was too strong for her. And the despair that it awoke seemed to break up her whole existence, and render her unfit for her daily task. But now she found that, once more, she had underrated the strength of her own impulses. For some time she resisted, but one day, the sun shone out strong and genial, the budding trees spread their branches to the warm air, a blackbird warbled ecstatically from among the Priory shrubberies, and Hadria passed into the garden of the Griffins.

The caretaker smiled, when she saw who stood on the doorstep.

"Why ma'am, I thought you was never coming again to play on the piano; I have missed it, that I have. It makes the old place seem that cheerful—I can almost fancy it's my poor young mistress come back again. She used to sit and play on that piano, by the hour together."

"I am glad you have enjoyed it," said Hadria gently. The blinds were pulled up in the drawing-room, the piano was uncovered, the windows thrown open to the terrace.

"You haven't had much time for playing since your mamma has been ill," the woman continued, dusting the keys and setting up the music-rest.

"To-day my mother has a visitor; Mrs. Joseph Fleming is spending the afternoon with her," said Hadria.

"To be sure, ma'am, to be sure, a nice young lady, and so cheerful," said the good woman, bustling off to wind up the tall old clock with the wise-looking face, that had been allowed to run down since Hadria's last visit. "Seems more cheerful like," observed the caretaker, as the steady tick-tack began to sound through the quiet room.

"And have you fed my birds regularly, Mrs. Williams?" asked Hadria, taking off her hat and standing at the open window looking out to the terrace.

"Yes indeed, ma'am, every day, just as you used to do when you came yourself. And they has got so tame; they almost eats out of my hand."

"And my robin? I hope he has not deserted us."

"Oh, no, he comes right into the room sometimes and hops about, just as he did that afternoon, the last time you was here! I think it's the same bird, for he likes to perch on that table and pick up the crumbs."

"Poor little soul! If you will give me a scrap of bread, Mrs. Williams——"

The caretaker left the room, and returned with a thick slice, which Hadria crumbled and scattered on the window-sill, as she stepped out to the terrace.

The calm old mansion with its delicate outlines, its dreamy exquisite stateliness, spoke of rest and sweet serenity. The place had the melancholy but also the repose of greatness. It was rich in all that lies nearest to the heart of that mysterious, dual-faced divinity that we call beauty, compounded of sorrow and delight.

Ah! if only its owner could come and take up his abode here. If only he would get well! Hadria's thoughts wandered backwards to that wonderful evening, when she had played to him and Algitha, and they had all watched the sunset afterwards, from the terrace. How long was it since she had touched the piano in this old drawing-room? Never since she returned from Paris. Even her own piano at home had been almost equally silent. She believed that she had not only quite abandoned hope with regard to music, but that she had prepared herself to face the inevitable decay of power, the inevitable proofs of her loss, as time went on. But so far, she had only had proofs that she could do astonishingly much if she had the chance.

To-day, for the first time, the final ordeal had to be gone through. And her imagination had never conceived its horror. She was to be taken at her word. The neglected gift was beginning to show signs of decay and enfeeblement. It had given fair warning for many a year, by the persistent appeal that it made, the persistent pain that it caused; but the famine had told upon it at last. It was dying. As this fact insinuated itself into the consciousness, in the teeth of a wild effort to deny it, despair flamed up, fierce and violent. She regretted that she had not thrown up everything long ago, rather than endure this lingering death; she cursed her hesitation, she cursed her fate, her training, her circumstances, she cursed herself. Whatever there was to curse, she cursed. What hideous nonsense to imagine herself ready to face this last insult of fate! She was like a martyr, who invites the stake and the faggot, and knows what he has undertaken only when the flames begin to curl about his feet. She had offered up her power, her imperious creative instinct, to the Lares and Penates; those greedy little godlets whom there was no appeasing while an inch of one remained that they could tear to pieces. She clenched her hands, in agony. The whole being recoiled now, at the eleventh hour, as a fierce wild creature that one tries to bury alive. She looked back along the line of the past and saw, with too clear eyes, the whole insidious process, so stealthy that she had hardly detected it, at the time. She remembered those afternoons at the Priory, when the restless, ill-trained power would assert itself, free for the moment, from the fetters and the dismemberment that awaited it in ordinary life. But like a creature accustomed to the yoke, she had found it increasingly difficult to use the moments of opportunity when they came. The force of daily usage, the necessary bending of thoughts in certain habitual directions, had assisted the crippling process, and though the power still lay there, stiffer than of yore, yet the preliminary movements and readjustments used up time and strength, and then gradually, with the perpetual repetition of adverse habits, the whole process became slower, harder, crueler.

"Good heavens! are all doors going to be shut against me?"

It was more than she could bear! And yet it must be borne—unless—no, there was no "unless." It was of no use to coquet with thoughts of suicide. She had thought all that out long ago, and had sought, at more than one crisis of desperate misery, for refuge from the horror and the insults of life. But there were always others to be considered. She could not strike them so terrible a blow. Retreat was ruthlessly cut off. Nothing remained but the endurance of a conscious slow decay; nothing but increasing loss and feebleness, as the surly years went by. They were going, going, these years of life, slipping away with their spoils. Youth was departing, everything was vanishing; her very self, bit by bit, slowly but surely, till the House of Life would grow narrow and shrunken to the sight, the roof descend. The gruesome old story of the imprisoned prince flashed into her mind; the wretched captive, young and life-loving, who used to wake up, each morning, to find that of the original seven windows of his dungeon, one had disappeared, while the walls had advanced a foot, and to-morrow yet another foot, till at length the last window had closed up, and the walls shrank together and crushed him to death.

"I can't, I can't endure it!"

Hadria had leaned forward against the key-board, which gave forth a loud crash of discordant notes, strangely expressive of the fall and failure of her spirit.

She remained thus motionless, while the airs wandered in from the garden, and a broad ray of sunlight showed the strange incessant gyrations of the dust atoms, that happened to lie within the revealing brightness. The silence was perfect.

Hadria raised her head at last, and her eyes wandered out to the sweet old garden, decked in the miraculous hues of spring. The unutterable loveliness brought, for a second, a strange, inconsequent sense of peace; it seemed like a promise and a message from an unknown god.

But after that momentary and inexplicable experience, the babble of thought went on as before. The old dream mounted again heavenwards, like a cloud at sunset; wild fancies fashioned themselves in the brain. And then, in fantastic images, Hadria seemed to see a panorama of her own life and the general life pass before her, in all their incongruity and confusion. The great mass of that life showed itself as prose, because the significance of things had not been grasped or suspected; but here and there, the veil was pierced—by some suffering soul, by some poet's vision—and the darkness of our daily, pompous, careworn, ridiculous little existence made painfully visible.

"It is all absurd, all futile!" (so moved the procession of the thoughts); "and meanwhile the steady pulse of life beats on, not pausing while we battle out our days, not waiting while we decide how we shall live. We are possessed by a sentiment, an ideal, a religion; old Time makes no comment, but moves quietly on; we fling the thing aside as tawdry, insufficient; the ideal is tarnished, experience of the world converts us—and still unmoved, he paces on. We are off on another chase; another conception of things possesses us; and still the beat of his footstep sounds in our ears, above the tumult. We think and aspire and dream, and meanwhile the fires grow cold upon the hearth, the daily cares and common needs plead eloquently for our undivided service; the stupendous movement of Existence goes on unceasingly, at our doors; thousands struggling for gold and fame and mere bread, and resorting to infamous devices to obtain them; the great commercial currents flow and flow, according to their mystic laws; the price of stocks goes up, goes down, and with them, the life and fate of thousands; the inconsequent bells ring out from Craddock Church, and the people congregate; the grave of the schoolmistress sleeps in the sunshine, and the sound of the bells streams over it—meaning no irony—to lose itself in the quiet of the hills; rust and dust collect in one's house, in one's soul; and this and that, and that and this,—like the pendulum of the old time-piece, with its solemn tick—dock the moments of one's life, with each its dull little claim and its tough little tether, and lead one decorously to the gateway of Eternity."

There was a flutter of wings, in the room. A robin hopped in at the window and perched daintily on the table-ledge, its delicate claws outlined against the whiteness of the dust-sheet, its head inquisitively on one side, as if it were asking the reason of the musician's unusual silence. Suddenly, the little creature fluffed out its feathers, drew itself together, and warbled forth a rich ecstatic song, that seemed to be deliberately addressed to its human companion. Hadria raised her bowed head. Up welled the swift unaccustomed tears, while the robin, with increasing enthusiasm, continued his song. His theme, doubtless, was of the flicker of sunlit shrubberies, the warmth of summer, the glory of spring, the sweetness of the revolving seasons. For cure of heart-ache, he suggested the pleasantness of garden nooks, and the repose that lingers about a dew-sprinkled lawn. All these things were warmly commended to the human being whose song of life had ceased.

"But they break my heart, little singer, they break my heart!"

The robin lifted up its head and warbled more rapturously than ever.

The tears were falling fast now, and silently. The thoughts ran on and on. "I know it all, I know it all, and my heart is broken—and it is my own fault—and it does not matter—the world is full of broken hearts—and it does not matter, it does not matter. But, oh, if the pain might stop, if the pain might stop! The robin sings now, because the spring is here; but it is not always spring. And some day—perhaps not this winter, but some day—the dear little brown body will agonize—it will die alone, in the horrible great universe; one thinks little of a robin, but it agonizes all the same when its time comes; it agonizes all the same."

The thoughts were drowned, for a moment, in a flood of terrible, unbearable pity for all the sorrow of the world.

The robin seemed to think that he had a mission to cheer his companion, for he warbled merrily on. And beside him, the dust-motes danced the wildest of dances, in the shaft of sunshine.

"It is very lovely, it is very lovely—the world is a miracle, but it is all like a taunt, it is like an insult, this glory of the world. I am born a woman, and to be born a woman is to be exquisitely sensitive to insult and to live under it always, always. I wish that I were as marble to the magic of Life, I wish that I cared for nothing and felt nothing. I pray only that the dream and the longing may be killed, and killed quickly!"

In the silence, the bird's note sounded clear and tender. The dance of the dust-motes, like the great dance of Life itself, went on without ceasing.

The robin seemed to insist on a brighter view of things. He urged his companion to take comfort. Had the spring not come?

"But you do not understand, you do not understand, little soul that sings—the spring is torturing me and taunting me. If only it would kill me!"

The robin fluffed out his feathers, and began again to impart his sweet philosophy. Hadria was shedding the first unchecked tears that she had shed since her earliest childhood. And then, for the second time to-day, that strange unexplained peace stole into her heart. Reason came quickly and drove it away with a sneer, and the horror and the darkness closed round again.

"If I might only die, if I might only die!"

But the little bird sang on.



CHAPTER LI.

"Quite hopeless!"

Joseph Fleming repeated the words incredulously.

"Yes," said Lady Engleton, "it is the terrible truth."

The Professor had been growing worse, and at length, his state became so alarming that he decided to return to England. Miss Du Prel and an old friend whom she had met abroad, accompanied him.

"I understand they are all at the Priory," said Joseph.

"Yes; Miss Du Prel telegraphed to Mrs. Temperley, and Mrs. Temperley and I put our heads together and arranged matters as well as we could in the emergency, so that the Professor's wish might be gratified. He desired to return to the Priory, where his boyhood was spent."

"And is there really no hope?"

"None at all, the doctor says."

"Dear me, dear me!" cried Joseph. "And is he not expected to live through the summer?"

"The summer! ah no, Mr. Fleming, he is not expected to live many days."

"Dear me, dear me!" was all that Joseph could say. Then after a pause, he added, "I fear Mrs. Temperley will feel it very much. They were such old friends."

"Oh! poor woman, she is heart-broken."

* * * * *

The Professor lingered longer than the doctor had expected. He was very weak, and could not bear the fatigue of seeing many people. But he was perfectly cheerful, and when feeling a little better at times, he would laugh and joke in his old kindly way, and seemed to enjoy the fragment of life that still remained to him.

"I am so glad I have seen the spring again," he said, "and that I am here, in the old home."

He liked to have the window thrown wide open, when the day was warm. Then his bed would be wheeled closer to it, so that the sunshine often lay across it, and the scent of the flowering shrubs and the odour of growth, as he called it, floated in upon him. He looked out into a world of exquisite greenery and of serene sky. The room was above the drawing-room, and if the drawing-room windows were open, he could hear Hadria playing. He often used to ask for music.

The request would come generally after an exhausting turn of pain, when he could not bear the fatigue of seeing people.

"I can't tell you what pleasure and comfort your music is to me," he used to say, again and again. "It has been so ever since I knew you. When I think of the thousands of poor devils who have to end their lives in some wretched, lonely, sordid fashion, after hardships and struggles and very little hope, I can't help feeling that I am fortunate indeed, now and all through my life. I have grumbled at times, and there have been sharp experiences—few escape those—but take it all round, I have had my share of good things."

He had one great satisfaction: that he had discovered, before the end of his days, the means which he had so long been seeking, of saving the death-agony of animals that are killed for food. Some day perhaps, he said, men might cease to be numbered among the beasts of prey, but till then, at least their victims might be spared as much pain as possible. He had overcome the difficulty of expense, which had always been the main obstacle to a practical solution of the problem. Henceforth there was no need for any creature to suffer, in dying for man's use. If people only knew and realized how much needless agony is inflicted on these helpless creatures, in order to supply the daily demands of a vast flesh-eating population, they would feel that, as a matter of fact, he had been doing the human race a good turn as well as their more friendless fellow-beings. It was impossible to imagine that men and women would not suffer at the thought of causing suffering to the helpless, if once they realized that suffering clearly. Men and women were not devils! Theobald had always laughed at him for this part of his work, but he felt now, at the close of his life, that he could dwell upon that effort with more pleasure than on any other, although others had won him far more applause, and this had often brought him contempt. If only he could be sure that the discovery would not be wasted.

"It shall be our business to see that it is not," said Valeria, in a voice tremulous with unshed tears.

The Professor heaved a sigh of relief, at this assurance.

"My earlier work is safe; what I have done in other directions, is already a part of human knowledge and resource, but this is just the sort of thing that might be so easily lost and forgotten. These sufferings are hidden, and when people do not see a wrong, they do not think of it; make them think, make them think!"

A week had gone by since the Professor's arrival at the Priory. He was in great pain, but had intervals of respite. He liked, in those intervals, to see his friends. They could scarcely believe that he was dying, for he still seemed so full of interest in the affairs of life, and spoke of the future as if he would be there to see it. One of the most distressing interviews was with Mr. Fullerton, who could not be persuaded that the invalid had but a short time to live. The old man believed that death meant, beyond all question, annihilation of the personality, and had absolutely no hope of meeting again.

"Don't be too sure, old friend," said the Professor; "don't be too sure of anything, in this mysterious universe."

The weather kept warm and genial, and this was favourable to his lingering among them a little longer. But his suffering, at times, was so great that they could scarcely wish for this delay. Hadria used always to play to him during some part of the afternoon. The robin had become a constant visitor, and had found its way to the window of the sick-room, where crumbs had been scattered on the sill. The Professor took great pleasure in watching the little creature. Sometimes it would come into the room and hop on to a chair or table, coquetting from perch to perch, and looking at the invalid, with bright inquisitive eyes. The crumbs were put out at a certain hour each morning, and the bird had acquired the habit of arriving almost to the moment. If, by chance, the crumbs had been forgotten, the robin would flutter ostentatiously before the window, to remind his friends of their neglected duty.

During the last few days, Hadria had fancied that the Professor had divined Valeria's secret, or that she had betrayed it.

There was a peculiar, reverent tenderness in his manner towards her, that was even more marked than usual.

"Can't we save him? can't we save him, Hadria?" she used to cry piteously, when they were alone. "Surely, surely there is some hope. Science makes such professions; why doesn't it do something?"

"Ah, don't torture yourself with false hope, dear Valeria."

"The world is monstrous, life is unbearable," exclaimed Valeria, with a despairing break in her voice.

But one afternoon, she came out of the sick-room with a less distraught expression on her worn face, though her eyes shewed traces of tears.

The dying man used to speak often about his wife to Hadria. This had been her room, and he almost fancied her presence about him.

"Do you know," he said, "I have found, of late, that many of my old fixed ideas have been insidiously modifying. So many things that I used to regard as preposterous have been borne in upon me, in a singular fashion, as by no means so out of the question. I have had one or two strange experiences and now a hope—I might say a faith—has settled upon me of an undying element in our personality. I feel that we shall meet again those we have loved here—some time or another."

"What a sting that would take from the agony of parting," cried Hadria.

"And, after all, is it less rational to suppose that there is some survival of the Self, and that the wild, confused earthly experience is an element of a spiritual evolutionary process, than to suppose that the whole universe is chaotic and meaningless? For what we call mind exists, and it must be contained in the sum-total of existence, or how could it arise out of it? Therefore, some reasonable scheme appears more likely than a reasonless one. And then there is that other big fact that stares us in the face and puts one's fears to shame: human goodness."

Hadria's rebellious memory recalled the fact of human cruelty and wickedness to set against the goodness, but she was silent.

"What earthly business has such a thing as goodness or pity to appear in a fortuitous, mindless, soulless universe? Where does it come from? What is its origin? Whence sprang the laws that gave it birth?"

"It gives more argument to faith than any thing I know," she said, "even if there had been but one good man or woman since the world began."

"Ah, yes; the pity and tenderness that lie in the heart of man, even of the worst, if only they can be appealed to before they die, may teach us to hope all things."

There was a long silence. Through the open window, they could hear the soft cooing of the wood-pigeons. Among the big trees behind the house, there was a populous rookery, noisy now with the squeaky voices of the young birds, and the deeper cawing of the parent rooks.

"I have been for many years without one gleam of hope," said the Professor slowly. "It is only lately that some of my obstinate preconceptions have begun to yield to other suggestions and other thoughts, which have opened up a thousand possibilities and a thousand hopes. And I have not been false to my reason in this change; I have but followed it more fearlessly and more faithfully."

"I have sometimes thought," said Hadria, "that when we seem to cling most desperately to our reason, we are really refusing to accept its guidance into unfamiliar regions. We confuse the familiar with the reasonable."

"Exactly. And I want you to be on your guard against that intellectual foible, which I believe has held me back in a region of sadness and solitude that I need not have lingered in, but for that."

There was a great commotion in the rookery, and presently a flock of rooks swept across the window, in loud controversy, and away over the garden in a circle, and then up and up till they were a grey little patch of changing shape, in the blue of the sky.

The dying man followed them with his eyes. He had watched such streaming companies start forth from the old rookery, ever since his boyhood. The memories of that time, and of the importunate thoughts that had haunted him then, at the opening of life, returned to him now.

He had accomplished a fraction of what he had set out to attempt, with such high hopes. His dream of personal happiness had failed; many an illusion had been lost, many a bitterly-regretted deed had saddened him, many an error had revenged itself upon him. He drew a deep sigh.

"And if the scheme of the universe be a reasonable one," he said half dreamily, "then one can account better for the lives that never fulfil themselves; the apparent failure that saddens one, in such numberless instances, especially among women. For in that case, the failure is only apparent, however cruel and however great. If the effort has been sincere, and the thought bent upon the best that could be conceived by the particular soul, then that effort and that thought must play their part in the upward movement of the race. I cannot believe otherwise."

Hadria's head was bent. Her lips moved, as if in an effort to speak, but no sound came.

"To believe that all the better and more generous hopes of our kind are to be lost and ineffectual, that genius is finally wasted, and goodness an exotic to be trampled under foot in the blind movements of Nature—that requires more power of faith than I can muster. Once believe that thought is the main factor, the motive force of the universe, then everything settles into its place, and we have room for hope; indeed it insists upon admission; it falls into the shadow of our life like that blessed ray of sunlight."

It lay across the bed, in a bright streak.

"The hope leads me far. My training has been all against it, but it comes to me with greater and greater force. It makes me feel that presently, when we have bid one another farewell, it will not be for ever. We shall meet again, dear Hadria, believe me." She was struggling with her tears, and could answer nothing.

"I wish so much that I could leave this hope, as a legacy to you. I wish I could leave it to Valeria. Take care of her, won't you? She is very solitary and very sad."

"I will, I will," Hadria murmured.

"Do not turn away from the light of rational hope, if any path should open up that leads that way. And help her to do the same. When you think of me, let it be happily and with comfort."

Hadria was silently weeping.

"And hold fast to your own colours. Don't take sides, above all, with the powers that have oppressed you. They are terrible powers, and yet people won't admit their strength, and so they are left unopposed. It is worse than folly to underrate the forces of the enemy. It is always worse than folly to deny facts in order to support a theory. Exhort people to face and conquer them. You can help more than you dream, even as things stand. I cannot tell you what you have done for me, dear Hadria." (He held out his hand to her.) "And the helpless, human and animal—how they wring one's heart! Do not forget them; be to them a knight-errant. You have suffered enough yourself, to know well how to bind their wounds." The speaker paused, for a moment, to battle with a paroxysm of pain.

"There is so much anguish," he said presently, "so much intolerable anguish, even when things seem smoothest. The human spirit craves for so much, and generally it gets so little. The world is full of tragedy; and sympathy, a little common sympathy, can do so much to soften the worst of grief. It is for the lack of that, that people despair and go down. I commend them to you."

* * * * *

The figure lay motionless, as if asleep. The expression was one of utter peace. It seemed as if all the love and tenderness, all the breadth and beauty of the soul that had passed away, were shining out of the quieted face, from which all trace of suffering had vanished. The look of desolation that used, at times, to come into it, had entirely gone.

Hadria and Valeria stood together, by the bedside. At the foot of the bed was a glass vase, holding a spray of wild cherry blossom; Hadria had brought it, to the invalid's delight, the day before. There were other offerings of fresh flowers; a mass of azaleas from Lady Engleton; bunches of daffodils that Valeria had gathered in the meadows; and old Dodge had sent a handful of brown and yellow wallflower, from his garden. The blind had been raised a few inches, so as to let in the sunlight and the sweet air. It was a glorious morning. The few last hot days had brought everything out, with a rush. The boughs of the trees, that the Professor had loved so to watch during his illness, were swaying gently in the breeze, just as they had done when his eyes had been open to see them. The wood-pigeons were cooing, the young rooks cawing shrilly in the rookery. Valeria seemed to be stunned. She stood gazing at the peaceful face, with a look of stony grief.

"I can't understand it!" she exclaimed at last, with a wild gesture, "I can't believe he will never speak to me again! It's a horrible dream—oh, but too horrible—ah, why can't I die as well as he?" She threw herself on her knees, shaken with sobs, silent and passionate. Hadria did not attempt to remonstrate or soothe her. She turned away, as a flood of bitter grief swept over her, so that she felt as one drowning.

Some minutes passed before Valeria rose from her knees, looking haggard and desolate. Hadria went towards her hastily.

"What's that?" cried Valeria with a nervous start and a scared glance towards the window.

"The robin!" said Hadria, and the tears started to her eyes.

The bird had hopped in at his usual hour, in a friendly fashion. He picked up a few stray crumbs that had been left on the sill from yesterday, and then, in little capricious flights from stage to stage, finally arrived at the rail of the bed, and stood looking from side to side, with black, bright eyes, at the motionless figure. Hitherto it had been accustomed to a welcome. Why this strange silence? The robin hopped round on the rail, polished his beak meditatively, fluffed out his feathers, and then, raising his head, sang a tender requiem.



THE END.

* * * * *

APPENDIX

"Does Marriage Hinder a Woman's Self-development?"

In 1899, The Ladies' Realm asked several well-known women to write on the set topic, "Does Marriage Hinder a Woman's Self-development?" We reprint Mona Caird's ingenious response.

Perhaps it might throw some light on the question whether marriage interferes with a woman's self-development and career, if we were to ask ourselves honestly how a man would fare in the position, say, of his own wife.

We will take a mild case, so as to avoid all risk of exaggeration.

Our hero's wife is very kind to him. Many of his friends have far sadder tales to tell. Mrs. Brown is fond of her home and family. She pats the children on the head when they come down to dessert, and plies them with chocolate creams, much to the detriment of their health; but it amuses Mrs. Brown. Mr. Brown superintends the bilious attacks, which the lady attributes to other causes. As she never finds fault with the children, and generally remonstrates with their father, in a good-natured way, when he does so, they are devoted to the indulgent parent, and are inclined to regard the other as second-rate.

Meal-times are often trying in this household, for Sophia is very particular about her food; sometimes she sends it out with a rude message to the cook. Not that John objects to this. He wishes she would do it oftener, for the cook gets used to Mr. Brown's second-hand version of his wife's language. He simply cannot bring himself to hint at Mrs. Brown's robust objurgations. She can express herself when it comes to a question of her creature comforts!