"You call it an error. I call it a treachery," returned Hadria. "Why should the results of that treachery be thrust on to my shoulders to bear? Why should my generosity be summoned to your rescue? But I suppose you calculated on that sub-consciously, at the time."

"Hadria!"

"This is a moment for plain speaking, if ever there was one. You must have reckoned on an appeal to my generosity, and on the utter helplessness of my position when once I was safely entrapped. It was extremely clever and well thought out. Do you suppose that you would have dared to act as you did, if there had been means of redress in my hands, after marriage?"

"If I did rely on your generosity, I admit my mistake," said Henriette bitterly.

"And now when your deed brings its natural harvest of disaster, you and Hubert come howling, like frightened children, to have the mischief set straight again, the consequences of your treachery averted, by me, of all people on this earth!"

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

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

"I don't know what you mean."

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

Henriette rose with a vivid flush.

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

"When have I disputed that?"

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

"I believe that Hubert has acted conscientiously, according to his standard. But I detest his standard. He did not think it wrong or treacherous to behave as he did towards me. But it is that very fact that I so bitterly resent. I could have forgiven him a sin against myself alone, which he acknowledged to be a sin. But this is a sin against my entire sex, which he does not acknowledge to be a sin. It is the insolence that is implied in supposing it allowable for a man to trick a woman in that way, without the smallest damage to his self-respect, that sticks so in my throat. What does it imply as regards his attitude towards all women? Ah! it is that which makes me feel so rancorous. And I resent Hubert's calm assumption that he had a right to judge what was best for me, and even to force me, by fraud, into following his view, leaving me afterwards to adjust myself with circumstance as best I might: to make my bitter choice between unconditional surrender, and the infliction of pain and distress, on him, on my parents, on everybody. Ah, you calculated cunningly, Henriette! I am a coward about giving pain, little as you may now be disposed to credit it. You have tight hold of the end of my chain."

Hadria was pacing restlessly up and down the room. Little Martha ran out with her doll, and offered it, as if with a view to chase away the perturbed look from Hadria's face. The latter stooped mechanically and took the doll, smiling her thanks, and stroking the child's fair curls tenderly. Then she recommenced her walk up and down the room, carrying the doll carefully on her arm.

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

"Yes, Henriette, you and Hubert have made your calculations cleverly. You have advocates only too eloquent in my woman's temperament. You have succeeded only too well by your fraud, through which I now stand here, with a life in fragments, bound, chafe as I may, to choose between alternative disasters for myself and for all of us. Had you two only acted straightly with me, and kindly allowed me to judge for myself, instead of treacherously insisting on judging for me, this knot of your tying which you naively bring me to unravel, would never have wrung the life out of me as it is doing now—nor would it have caused you and Hubert so much virtuous distress."

Hadria recommenced her restless pacing to and fro.

"But, Hadria, do be calm, do look at the matter from our point of view. I have owned my indiscretion." (Hadria gave a little scornful cry.) "Surely you are not going to throw over all allegiance to your husband on that account, even granting he was to blame." Hadria stopped abruptly.

"I deny that I owe allegiance to a man who so treated me. I don't deny that he had excuses. The common standards exonerate him; but, good heavens, a sense of humour, if nothing else, ought to save him from making this grotesque claim on his victim! To preach the duties of wife and mother to me!" Hadria broke into a laugh. "It is inconceivably comic."

Henriette shrugged her shoulders. "I fear my sense of humour is defective. I can't see the justice of repudiating the duty of one's position, since there the position is, an accomplished fact not to be denied. Why not make the best of it?"

"Henriette, you are amazing! Supposing a wicked bigamist had persuaded a woman to go through a false marriage ceremony, and when she became aware of her real position, imagine him saying to her, with grave and virtuous mien, 'My dear, why repudiate the duties of your position, since there your position is, an accomplished fact not to be denied?'"

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

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

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

"We need not discuss that, for it is not the point. The point is that the position (be that right or wrong) was forced on the woman in both cases by fraud, and is then used as a pretext to exact from her the desired conduct; what the author of the fraud euphoniously calls 'duty.'"

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

By this time, Hadria had allowed the doll to slip back, and its limp body was hanging down disconsolately from her elbow, although she was clutching it, with absent-minded anxiety, to her side, in the hope of arresting its threatened fall.

"Oh, look at dolly, look, look!" cried Martha reproachfully. Hadria seized its legs and pulled it back again, murmuring some consolatory promise to its mistress.

"It is strange how you succeed in putting me on the defensive, Henriette—I who have been wronged. A horrible wrong it is too. It has ruined my life. You will never know all that it implies, never, never, though I talk till Doomsday. Nobody will—except Professor Fortescue."

Henriette gave a horrified gesture. "I believe you are in love with that man. That is the cause of all this wild conduct."

Miss Temperley had lost self-control for a moment.

Hadria looked at her steadily.

"I beg your pardon. I spoke in haste, Hadria. You have your faults, but Hubert has nothing to fear from you in that respect, I am sure."

"Really?" Hadria had come forward and was standing with her left elbow on the mantel-piece, the doll still tucked under her right arm. "And you think that I would, at all hazards, respect a legal tie which no feeling consecrates?"

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

"You think that I should regard myself as so completely the property of a man whom I do not love, and who actively dislikes me, as to hold my very feelings in trust for him. Disabuse yourself of that idea, Henriette. I claim rights over myself, and I will hold myself in pawn for no man. This is no news either to you or to Hubert. Why pretend that it is?"

Henriette covered her face with her hands.

"I can but hope," she said at length, "that even now you are saying these horrible things out of mere opposition. I cannot, I simply cannot believe, that you would bring disgrace upon us all."

"If you chose to regard it as a disgrace that I should make so bold as to lay claim to myself, that, it seems to me, would be your own fault." Henriette sprang forward white and trembling, and clutched Hadria's arm excitedly.

"Ah! you could not! you could not! Think of your mother and father, if you will not think of your husband and children. You terrify me!"

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

"Don't trouble," she said, more gently. "There is no thunderbolt about to fall in our discreet circle." (A hideous crash from the overturning of one of Martha's Eiffel Towers seemed to belie the words.)

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

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

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

"Promise me then at least, that before you do anything to bring misery and disgrace on us all, you will tell us of your intention, and give us a chance of putting our side of the matter before you."

"Of protecting your vested interests," said Hadria; "your right of way through my flesh and spirit."

"Of course you put it unkindly."

"I will not make promises for the future. The future is quite enough hampered with the past, without setting anticipatory traps and springes for unwary feet. But I refuse this promise merely on general principles. I am not about to distress you in that particular way, though I think you would only have yourselves to blame if I were."

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

"So far, so good," she said. "Now tell me—Is there nothing that would make you accept your duties?"

"Even if I were to accept what you call my duties, it would not be in the spirit that you would desire to see. It would be in cold acknowledgment of the force of existing facts—facts which I regard as preposterous, but admit to be coercive." Henriette sank wearily into her chair.

"Do you then hold it justifiable for a woman to inflict pain on those near to her, by a conduct that she may think justifiable in itself?"

Hadria hesitated for a moment.

"A woman is so desperately entangled, and restricted, and betrayed, by common consent, in our society, that I hold her justified in using desperate means, as one who fights for dear life. She may harden her heart—if she can."

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

"Ah! that is our weak point! For a long time to come, we shall be overpowered by our own cage-born instincts, by our feminine conscience that has been trained so cleverly to dog the woman's footsteps, in man's interest—his detective in plain clothes!"

"Of course, if you repudiate all moral claim——" began Henriette, weakly.

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

"Are you determined to harden yourself against every appeal?" Hadria looked at her sister-in-law, in silence.

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

"Because I have just been endeavouring, evidently in vain, to explain in what light I regard appeals on this point."

"Then Hubert and the children are to be punished for what you are pleased to call his fraud—the fraud of a man in love with you, anxious to please you, to agree with you, and believing you too good and noble to allow his life to be spoilt by this girl's craze for freedom. It is inconceivable!"

"I fear that Hubert must be prepared to endure the consequences of his actions, like the rest of us. It is the custom, I know, for the sex that men call weaker, to saddle themselves with the consequences of men's deeds, but I think we should have a saner, and a juster world if the custom were discontinued."

"You have missed one of the noblest lessons of life, Hadria," cried Miss Temperley, rising to leave. "You do not understand the meaning of self-sacrifice."

"A principle that, in woman, has been desecrated by misuse," said Hadria. "There is no power, no quality, no gift or virtue, physical or moral, that we have not been trained to misuse. Self-sacrifice stands high on the list."

Miss Temperley shrugged her shoulders, sadly and hopelessly.

"You have fortified yourself on every side. My words only prompt you to throw up another earthwork at the point attacked. I do harm instead of good. I will leave you to think the matter over alone." Miss Temperley moved towards the door.

"Ah, you are clever, Henriette! You know well that I am far better acquainted with the weak points of my own fortifications than you can be, who did not build them, and that when I have done with the defence against you, I shall commence the attack myself. You have all the advantages on your side. Mine is a forlorn hope:—a handful of Greeks at Thermopylae against all the host of the Great King. We are foredoomed; the little band must fall, but some day, Henriette, when you and I shall be no more troubled with these turbulent questions—some day, these great blundering hosts of barbarians will be driven back, and the Greek will conquer. Then the realm of liberty will grow wide!"

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

Hadria's eyes flashed, and she stood drawn up, straight and defiant, before the mantel-piece.

"Ah! there is a fiercer Salamis and a crueller Marathon yet to be fought, before the world will so much as guess what freedom means. I have no illusions now, regarding my own chances, but I should hold it as an honour to stand and fall at Thermopylae, with Leonidas and his Spartans."

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

The doll fell with a great crash, into the fender among the fire-irons, and there was a little burst of laughter. Miss Temperley passed through the door, at the same instant, with great dignity.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

As Hadria had foretold, she commenced the attack on herself as soon as Henriette had departed, and all night long, the stormy inner debate was kept up. Her mind never wavered, but her heart was rebellious. Hubert deserved to pay for his conduct; but if we all had to pay for our conduct to the uttermost farthing, that would be hard, if just. If Hadria assumed the burden of Hubert's debt, it would mean what M. Jouffroy had pointed out. Hubert's suffering would be only on account of offended public opinion; hers—but then her parents would suffer as well as Hubert. Round and round went the thoughts, like vast wheels, and when towards morning, she dozed off a little, the wheels were still turning in a vague, weary way, and as they turned, the life seemed to be crushed gradually out of the sleeper.

Jouffroy came to enquire whether the decision had been made. He was in a state of great excitement. He gave fervent thanks that Hadria had stood firm.

"You do not forget my words, Madame?"

"I shall never forget them, Monsieur."

Henriette discreetly forbore to say anything further on the subject of dispute. She waited, hopefully.

"Hubert has been troubled about the money that your father set apart, on your marriage, as a contribution to the household expenses," she said, one morning. "Your father did not place it all in your name."

"I know," said Hadria. "It is tied up, in some way, for the use of the family. I have a small sum only in my own control."

"Hubert is now leaving half of it to accumulate. The other half has still to go towards the expenses at the Red House. I suppose you approve?"

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

"But Hubert feared you might be running short of money, and wished to send you some; but the trustees say it is against the conditions of the trust."

"So I suppose."

"I wanted you to know about it, that is all," said Henriette. "Also, I should like to say that though Hubert does not feel that he can ask you to return to the Red House, after what has happened—he cannot risk your refusing—yet I take it on myself to tell you, that he would only be too glad if you would go back."

"Thank you, I understand."

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

"Bad news!" Hadria exclaimed.

The letter announced the failure of the Company. It was the final blow. Dunaghee would have to be given up. Mrs. Fullerton's settlement was all that she and her husband would now have to live upon.

Hadria sat gazing at the letter, with a dazed expression. Almost before the full significance of the calamity had been realized, a telegram arrived, announcing that Mrs. Fullerton had fallen dangerously ill.

The rest of that day was spent in packing, writing notes, settling accounts, and preparing for departure.

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

"By the night boat, by the night boat," Hadria replied hurriedly, as if the hurry of her speech would quicken her arrival in England.

The great arches of the station which had appealed to her imagination, at the moment of arrival, swept upward, hard and grey, in the callous blue light. Hadria breathed deep. Was she the same person who had arrived that night, with every nerve thrilled with hope and resolve? Ah! there had been so much to learn, and the time had been so short. Starting with her present additional experience, she could have managed so much better. But of what use to think of that? How different the homeward journey from the intoxicating outward flight, in the heyday of the spring!

What did that telegram mean? Ill; dangerously, dangerously. The words seemed to be repeated cruelly, insistently, by the jogging of the train and the rumble of the wheels. The anxiety gnawed on, rising at times into terror, dulling again to a steady ache. And then remorse began to fit a long-pointed fang into a sensitive spot in her heart. In vain to resist. It was securely placed. Let reason hold her peace.

A thousand fears, regrets, self-accusations, revolts, swarmed insect-like in Hadria's brain, as the train thundered through the darkness, every tumultuous sound and motion exaggerated to the consciousness, by the fact that there was no distraction of the attention by outside objects. Nothing offered itself to the sight except the strange lights and shadows of the lamp thrown on the cushions of the carriage; Henriette's figure in one corner, Hannah, with the child, in another, and the various rugs and trappings of wandering Britons. Everything was contracted, narrow. The sea-passage had the same sinister character. Hadria compared it to the crossing of the Styx in Charon's gloomy ferry-boat.

She felt a patriotic thrill on hearing the first mellow English voice pronouncing the first kindly English sentence. The simple, slow, honest quality of the English nature gave one a sense of safety. What splendid raw material to make a nation out of! But, ah, it was sometimes dull to live with! These impressions, floating vaguely in the upper currents of the mind, were simultaneous with a thousand thoughts and anxieties, and gusts of bitter fear and grief.

What would be the end of it all? This uprooting from the old home—it wrung one's heart to think of it. Scarcely could the thought be faced. Her father, an exile from his beloved fields and hills; her mother banished from her domain of so many years, and after all these disappointments and mortifications and sorrows! It was piteous. Where would they live? What would they do?

Hadria fought with her tears. Ah! it was hard for old people to have to start life anew, bitterly hard. This was the moment for their children to flock to their rescue, to surround them with care, with affection, with devotion; to make them feel that at least something 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 aetherial 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 masque 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 role 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?