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

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

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

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

"This sounds like evasion," said Algitha.

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

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

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

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

"Did you hear?"

"No, but I feel sure of it."

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

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

Algitha shook her head anxiously.

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

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

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

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

Hadria flushed deeply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XLII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Because Mary says so," Jack returned.

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

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

* * * * *

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

"If you can, Professor Theobald."

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

"Your ruling passion is power over others."

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

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

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

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

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

Hadria gave a murmur of assent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Professor Theobald advanced a step. Hadria drew back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XLIII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Easier said than done."

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

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

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

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

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

"Indeed, I am not so sure."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And your mother?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Professor laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I seem to have got myself into one of those situations where there is no right," she exclaimed.

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

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

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

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

The step drew nearer.

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

"Professor Fortescue!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Obviously not," replied Professor Fortescue.

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

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

"That is exactly what I say."

"Surely Mrs. Temperley does not demur?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a long silence.

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

Hadria rose abruptly. She looked pale and perturbed.

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

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

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

Theobald glanced at her, meaningfully.

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

Hadria turned deadly pale, and stumbled slightly.

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

"We must talk it over," said Theobald.

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

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

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

"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed Theobald.

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XLIV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah, so do I."

"I suppose it's impossible."

"Absolutely."

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

"It must be a sovereign cure for egoism."

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

"You believe it is quite incurable?"

"If it is constitutional."

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

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

"One has the choice between egoism and extinction."

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

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

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

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

"No; that would be difficult."

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

There was a long pause.

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

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

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

"Quite intolerable!"

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

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

There was a step on the lawn behind them.

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

Once, in her girlhood, when she was scarcely sixteen, she had gone with her parents and Algitha for a tour in Italy. It was a short but vivid experience which had tinged her life, leaving a memory and a longing that never died. The movement of travel, the sense of change and richness offered to eye and mind, remained with her always; the vision of a strange, tumultuous, beautiful world; of exquisite Italian cities, of forests and seas; of classic plains and snow-capped mountains; of treasures of art—the eternal evidence of man's aloofness, on one side of him, from the savage element in nature—and glimpses of cathedral domes and palace walls; and villages clinging like living things to the hill-sides, or dreaming away their drowsy days in some sunny valley. And then the mystery that every work of man enshrines; the life, the thought, the need that it embodies, and the passionate histories that it hides! It was as if the sum and circumstance of life had mirrored itself in the memory, once and for all. The South lured her with its languor, its colour, its hot sun, and its splendid memories. It was exquisite pleasure and exquisite pain to listen to the anticipations of these two, who were able to wander as they would.

"Siena?" said Valeria with a sigh, "I used to know Siena when I was young and happy. That was where I made the fatal mistake in my life. It is all a thing of the past now. I might have married a good and brilliantly intellectual man, whom I could respect and warmly admire; for whom I had every feeling but the one that we romantic women think so essential, and that people assure us is the first to depart."

"You regret that you held fast to your own standard?" said Hadria.

"I regret that I could not see the wisdom of taking the good that was offered to me, since I could not have that which I wished. Now I have neither."

"How do you know you would have found the other good really satisfactory!"

"I believe in the normal," said Valeria, "having devoted my existence to an experiment of the abnormal."

"I don't think what we call the normal is, by any means, so safe as it sounds, for civilized women at any rate," observed the Professor.

Valeria shook her head, and remained silent. But her face expressed the sad thoughts left unsaid. In youth, it was all very well. One had the whole world before one, life to explore, one's powers to test. But later on, when all that seemed to promise fades away, when the dreams drift out of sight, and strenuous efforts repeated and repeated, are beaten down by the eternal obstacles; when the heart is wearied by delay, disappointment, infruition, vain toil, then this once intoxicating world becomes a place of desolation to the woman who has rebelled against the common lot. And all the old instincts awake, to haunt and torment; to demand that which reason has learnt to deny or to scorn; to burden their victims with the cruel heritage of the past; to whisper regrets and longings, and sometimes to stir to a conflict and desperation that end in madness.

"I believe I should have been happier, if I had married some commonplace worthy in early life, and been the mother of ten children," Valeria observed, aloud.

Hadria laughed. "By this time, you or the ten children would have come to some tragic end. I don't know which I would pity most."

"I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do what other women have done," cried Valeria.

"A good deal more. But think, Valeria, of ten particular constitutions to grapple with, ten sets of garments to provide, ten series of ailments to combat, ten—no, let me see, two hundred and forty teeth to take to the dentist, not to mention characters and consciences in all their developments and phases, rising, on this appalling decimal system of yours, to regions of arithmetic far beyond my range."

"You exaggerate preposterously!" cried Valeria, half annoyed, although she laughed. She had the instinctive human desire to assert her ability in the direction where of all others it was lacking.

"And think of the uprush of impulse, good and evil; the stirring of the thought, the movements of longing and wonder, and then all the greedy selfishness of youth, with its untamed vigours and its superb hopes. What help does a child get from its parents, in the midst of this tumult, out of which silently, the future man or woman emerges—and grows, remember, according to the manner in which the world meets these generous or these baser movements of the soul?"

"You would frighten anyone from parenthood!" cried Valeria, discontentedly.

"Admit at least, that eight, or even seven, would have satisfied you."

"Well, I don't mind foregoing the last three or four," said Valeria. "But seriously, I think that a home and so forth, is the best that life has to offer to us women. It is, perhaps, not asking much, but I believe if one goes further, one fares worse."

"We all think the toothache would be so much more bearable, if it were only in the other tooth," said the Professor.

A silence fell upon the three. Their thoughts were evidently busy.

"I feel sorry," the Professor said at last, "that this should be your testimony. It has always seemed to me ridiculous that a woman could not gratify her domestic sentiments, without being claimed by them, body and soul. But I hoped that our more developed women would show us that they could make a full and useful and interesting life for themselves, even if that particular side of existence were denied them. I thought they might forego it for the sake of other things."

"Not without regretting it."

"Yet I have met women who held different opinions."

"Probably rather inexperienced women," said Valeria.

"Young women, but——"

"Ah, young women. What do they know? The element of real horror in a woman's life does not betray itself, until the moment when the sense of age approaches. Then, and not till then, she knows how much mere superficial and transitory attractions have had to do with making her life liveable and interesting. Then, and not till then, she realizes that she has unconsciously held the position of adventuress in society, getting what she could out of it, by means of personal charm; never resting on established right, for she has none. As a wife, she acquires a sort of reflected right. One must respect her over whom Mr. So-and-So has rights of property. Well, is it not wise to take what one can get—the little glory of being the property of Mr. So-and-So? I have scorned this opportunism all my life, and now I regret having scorned it. And I think, if you could get women to be sincere, they would tell you the same tale."

"And what do you think of the scheme of life, which almost forces upon our finest women, or tempts them to practise, this sort of opportunism?"

"I think it is simply savage," answered Valeria.

Again a silence fell on the little group. The spoken words seemed to call up a host of words unspoken. There was to Hadria, a personal as well as a general significance in each sentence, that made her listen breathlessly for the next.

"How would you define a good woman?" she asked.

"Precisely as I would define a good man," replied the Professor.

"Oh, I think we ask more of the woman," said Valeria.

"We do indeed!" cried Hadria, with a laugh.

"One may find people with a fussy conscience, a nervous fear of wrong-doing, who are without intelligence and imagination, but you never meet the noblest, and serenest, and largest examples of goodness without these attributes," said the Professor.

"This is not the current view of goodness in women," said Hadria.

"Naturally. The less intelligence and imagination the better, if our current morality is to hold its own. We want our women to accept its dogmas without question. We tell them how to be good, and if they don't choose to be good in that way, we call them bad. Nothing could be simpler."

"I believe," said Hadria, "that the women who are called good have much to do with the making of those that are called bad. The two kinds are substance and shadow. We shall never get out of the difficulty till they frankly shake hands, and admit that they are all playing the same game."

"Oh, they will never do that," exclaimed Valeria, laughing and shaking her head. "What madness!"

"Why not? The thing is so obvious. They are like the two sides of a piece of embroidery: one all smooth and fair, the other rough and ugly, showing the tag ends and the fastenings. But since the embroidery is insisted on, I can't see that it is of any moral consequence on which side of the canvas one happens to be."

"It is chiefly a matter of luck," said the Professor.

A long shadow fell across Hadria as she spoke, blotting out the little flicker of the sunlight that shone through the stirring leaves. Professor Theobald had crept up softly across the lawn, and as the chairs were turned towards the flower-borders, he had approached unobserved.

Hadria gave so violent a start when she heard his voice, that Professor Fortescue looked at her anxiously. He thought her nerves must be seriously out of order. The feverish manner of her greeting to the new-comer, confirmed his fear. Professor Theobald apologized for intruding. He had given up his intention of going up to town to-day. He meant to put it off till next week. He could not miss Fortescue's visit. One could not tell when one might see him again.

And Professor Theobald led the conversation airily on; talking fluently, and at times brilliantly, but always with that indefinable touch of something ignoble, something coarse, that now filled Hadria with unspeakable dismay. She was terrified lest the other two should go, and he should remain. And yet she ought to speak frankly to him. His conversation was full of little under-meanings, intended for her only to understand; his look, his manner to her made her actually hate him. Yet she felt the utter inconsequence and injustice of her attitude. He had not changed. There was nothing new in him. The change was in herself. Professor Fortescue had awakened her. But, of course, he was one in ten thousand. It was not fair to make the comparison by which Professor Theobald suffered so pitiably. At that moment, as if Fate had intended to prove to her how badly Professor Theobald really stood comparison with any thoroughly well-bred man, even if infinitely beneath him intellectually, Joseph Fleming happened to call. He was his old self again, simple, friendly, contented. Theobald was in one of his self-satisfied moods. Perhaps he enjoyed the triumph of his position in regard to Hadria. At any rate, he seemed to pounce on the new-comer as a foil to his own brilliancy. Joseph had no talent to oppose to it, but he had a simple dignity, the offspring of a kind and generous nature, which made Professor Theobald's conduct towards him appear contemptible. Professor Fortescue shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Hadria tried to change the topic; the flush deepening in her cheeks. Professor Fortescue attempted to come to her aid. Joseph Fleming laughed good-naturedly.

They sat late into the evening. Theobald could not find an excuse to outstay his colleague, since they were both guests at the same house.

"I must see you alone some time to-morrow," he managed to whisper. There was no time for a reply.

"I shall go and rest before dinner," said Valeria.

Hadria went into the house by the open window of the drawing-room. She sank back on the sofa; a blackness came before her eyes.

"No, no, I won't, I won't. Let me learn not to let things overpower me, in future."

When Valeria entered, dressed for dinner, she found Hadria, deadly pale, standing against the sofa, whose arm she was grasping with both hands, as if for dear life. Valeria rushed forward.

"Good heavens, Hadria! are you going to faint?"

"No," said Hadria, "I am not going to faint, if there is such a thing as human will."



CHAPTER XLV.

The morning had passed as usual, but household arrangements at the Cottage had required much adjustment, one of the maids being ill. She had been sent away for a rest, and the difficulty was to find another. Mary went from the Red House as substitute, in the mean time, and the Red House became disorganised.

"You look distracted with these little worries, Hadria. I should have said that some desperate crisis was hanging over you, instead of merely a domestic disturbance." Valeria was established on the lawn, with a book.

"I am going to seek serenity in the churchyard," explained Hadria.

"But I thought Professor Theobald said something about calling."

"I leave you to entertain him, if he comes," Hadria returned, and hastened away. She stopped at Martha's cottage for the child. Ah! What would become of her if it were not for Martha? The two sauntered together along the Craddock road.

All night long, Hadria had been trying to decide when and how to speak to Professor Theobald. Should she send for him? Should she write to him? Should she trust to chance for an opportunity of speaking? But, no, she could not endure to see him again in the presence of others, before she had spoken! Yesterday's experience had been too terrible. She had brought pencil and paper with her, in order to be able to write to him, if she decided on that course. There were plenty of retired nooks under the shade of the yew-trees in the churchyard, where one could write. The thick hedges made it perfectly secluded, and at this hour, it was always solitary. Little Martha was gathering wild-flowers in the hedges. She used to pluck them to lay on her mother's grave. She had but a vague idea of that unknown mother, but Hadria had tried to make the dead woman live again, in the child's mind, as a gentle and tender image. The little offering was made each time that they took their walk in the direction of Craddock. The grave looked fresh and sweet in the summer sunshine, with the ivy creeping up the tomb-stone and half obliterating the name. A rose-tree that Hadria and Martha had planted together, was laden with rich red blooms.

The two figures stood, hand in hand, by the grave. The child stooped to place her little tribute of flowers at the head of the green mound. Neither of them noticed a tall figure at the wicket gate. He stood outside, looking up the path, absolutely motionless. Martha let go Hadria's hand, and ran off after a gorgeous butterfly that had fluttered over the headstone: a symbol of the soul; fragile, beautiful, helpless thing that any rough hand may crush and ruin. Hadria turned to watch the graceful, joyous movement of the child, and her delight in the beauty of the rich brown wings, with their enamelled spots of sapphire.

"Hadria!"

She gave a little gasping cry, and turned sharply. Professor Theobald looked at her with an intent, triumphant expression. She stood before him, for the moment, as if paralysed. It was by no means the first time that this look had crossed his face, but she had been blind, and had not fully understood it. He interpreted her cry and her paleness, as signs of the fullness of his power over her. This pleased him immeasurably. His self-love basked and purred. He felt that his moment of triumph had come. Contrasting this meeting with the last occasion when they had stood together beside this grave, had he not ground for self-applause? He remembered so well that unpleasant episode. It was Hadria who stood then in the more powerful position. He had actually feared to meet her eye. He remembered how bitterly she had spoken, of her passion for revenge, of the relentless feud between man and woman. They had discussed the question of vengeance; he had pointed out its futility, and Hadria had set her teeth and desired it none the less. Lady Engleton had reminded her of a woman's helplessness if she places herself in opposition to a man, for whom all things are ordered in the society that he governs; her only chance of striking a telling blow being through his passions. If he were in love with her, then there might be some hope of making him wince. And Hadria, with a fierce swiftness had accepted the condition, with a mixture of confidence in her own power of rousing emotion, if she willed, and of scorn for the creature who could be appealed to through his passions, but not through his sense of justice. That she might herself be in that vulnerable condition, had not appeared to strike her as possible. It was a challenge that he could not but accept. She attracted him irresistibly. From the first moment of meeting, he had felt her power, and recognized, at the same time, the strange spirit of enmity that she seemed to feel towards him, and to arouse in him against her. He felt the savage in him awake, the desire of mere conquest. Long had he waited and watched, and at last he had seen her flush and tremble at his approach; and as if to make his victory more complete and insolent, it was at this grave that she was to confess herself ready to lose the world for his sake! Yes; and she should understand the position of affairs to the full, and consent nevertheless!

Her adoption of the child had added to his triumph. He could not think of it without a sense of something humourous in the relation of events. If ever Fate was ironical, this was the occasion! He felt so sure of Hadria to-day, that he was swayed by an overpowering temptation to reveal to her the almost comic situation. It appealed to his sense of the absurd, and to the savagery that lurked, like a beast of prey, at the foundation of his nature. Her evident emotion when he arrived yesterday afternoon and all through his visit, her agitation to-day, at the mere sound of his voice, assured him that his hold over her was secure. He must be a fool indeed if he could not keep it, in spite of revelations. To offer himself to her threatened vengeance of his own accord, and to see her turned away disarmed, because she loved him; that would be the climax of his victory!

There was something of their old antagonism, in the attitude in which they stood facing one another by the side of the grave, looking straight into one another's eyes. The sound of the child's happy laughter floated back to them across the spot where its mother lay at rest. Whether Theobald's intense consciousness of the situation had, in some way, affected Hadria, or whether his expression had given a clue, it would be difficult to say, but suddenly, as a whiff of scent invades the senses, she became aware of a new and horrible fact which had wandered into her mind, she knew not how; and she took a step backwards, as if stunned, breathing shortly and quickly. Again he interpreted this as a sign of intense feeling.

"Hadria," he said bending towards her, "you do love me?" He did not wait for her answer, so confident did he feel. "You love me for myself, not for my virtues or qualities, for I have but few of those, alas!" She tried to speak, but he interrupted her. "I want to make a confession to you. I can never forget what you said that day of Marion Fenwick's wedding, at the side of this very grave; you said that you wanted to take vengeance on the man who had brought such misery to this poor woman. You threatened—at least, it amounted to a threat—to make him fall in love with you, if ever you should meet him, and to render him miserable through his passion. I loved you and I trembled, but I thought to myself, 'What if I could make her return my love? Where would the vengeance be then?'"

Hadria had remained, for a second, perfectly still, and then turned abruptly away.

"I knew it would be a shock to you. I did not dare to tell you before. Think what depended on it for me. Had I told you at that moment, I knew all hope for me would be at an end. But now, it seems to me my duty to tell you. If you wish for vengeance still, here I am at your mercy—take it." He stretched out his arms and stood waiting before her. But she was silent. He was not surprised. Such a revelation, at such a moment, must, of necessity, stun her.

"Hadria, pronounce my fate. Do you wish for vengeance still? You have only to take it, if you do. Only for heaven's sake, don't keep me in suspense. Tell me your decision."

Still silence.

"Do you want to take revenge on me now?" he repeated.

"No;" she said abruptly, "of what use would it be? No, no, wait, wait a moment. I want no vengeance. It is useless for women to try to fight against men; they can only hate them!"

The Professor started, as if he had been struck.

They stood looking at one another.

"In heaven's name, what is the meaning of this? Am I to be hated for a sin committed years ago, and long since repented? Have you no breadth of sympathy, no tolerance for erring humanity? Am I never to be forgiven? Oh, Hadria, Hadria, this is more than I can bear!"

She was standing very still and very calm. Her tones were clear and deliberate.

"If vengeance is futile, so is forgiveness. It undoes no wrong. It is not a question of forgiveness or of vengeance. I think, after all, if I were to attempt the impossible by trying to avenge women whom men have injured, I should begin with the wives. In this case" (she turned to the grave), "the tragedy is more obvious, but I believe the everyday tragedy of the docile wife and mother is even more profound."

"You speak as coldly, as bitterly, as if you regarded me as your worst enemy—I who love you." He came forward a step, and she drew back hurriedly.

"All that is over. I too have a confession to make."

"Good heavens, what is it? Are you not what I thought you? Have you some history, some stain—? Don't for pity's sake tell me that!"

Hadria looked at him, with a cold miserable smile. "That is really amusing!" she cried; "I should not hold myself responsible to you, for my past, in any case. My confession relates to the present. I came up here with this pencil and paper, half resolved to write to you—I wanted to tell you that—that I find—I find my feelings towards you have changed——"

He gave a hoarse, inarticulate cry, and turned sharply round. His hands went up to his head. Then he veered suddenly, and went fiercely up to her.

"Then you are in earnest? You do hate me! for a sin dead and buried? Good God! could one have believed it? Because I was honest with you, where another man would have kept the matter dark, I am to be thrown over without a word, without a chance. Lord, and this is what a woman calls love!"

He broke into a laugh that sounded ghastly and cruel, in the serene calm of the churchyard. The laugh seemed to get the better of him. He had lost self-control. He put his hands on his hips and went on laughing harshly, yet sometimes with a real mirth, as if by that means only could he express the fierce emotions that had been roused in him. Mortified and furious as he was, he derived genuine and cynical amusement from the incident.

"And the devotion that we have professed—think of it! and the union of souls—ha, ha, ha! and the common interests and the deep sympathy—it is screaming! Almost worth the price I pay, for the sake of the rattling good joke! And by this grave! Great heavens, how humourous is destiny!" He leant his arms on the tomb-stone and laughed on softly, his big form shaking, his strange sinister face appearing over the stone, irradiated with merriment. In the dusk, among the graves, the grinning face looked like that of some mocking demon, some gargoyle come to life, to cast a spell of evil over the place.

"Ah, me, life has its comic moments!" His eyes were streaming. "I fear I must seem to you flippant, but you will admit the ludicrous side of the situation. I am none the less ready to cut my throat—ha, ha, ha! Admit, my dear Hadria—Mrs. Temperley—that it appeals also to your sense of humour. A common sense of humour, you know, was one of our bonds of union. What more appropriate than that we should part with shaking sides? Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! what am I to do? One can't live on a good joke for ever."

He grasped his head in his hands; then suddenly, he broke out into another paroxysm. "The feminine nature always the same, always, always; infinitely charming and infinitely volatile. Delicious, and oh how instructive!"

He slowly recovered calmness, and remained leaning on the gravestone.

"May I ask when this little change began to occur!" he asked presently.

"If you will ask in a less insolent fashion."

He drew himself up from his leaning attitude, and repeated the question, in different words.

Hadria answered it, briefly.

"Oh, I see," he said, the savage gleam coming back to his eyes. "The change in your feelings began when Fortescue appeared?"

Hadria flushed.

"It was when he appeared that I became definitely aware of that which I had been struggling with all my might and main to hide from myself, for a long time."

"And that was——?"

"That there was something in you that made me—well, why should I not say it?—that made me shrink."

He set his lips.

"You have not mentioned the mysterious something."

"An element that I have been conscious of from the first day I saw you."

"Something that I had, and Fortescue had not, it would seem."

"Yes."

"And so, on account of this diaphanous, indescribable, exquisite something, I am to be calmly thrown over; calmly told to go about my business!" He began to walk up and down the pathway, with feverish steps, talking rapidly, and representing Hadria's conduct in different lights, each one making it appear more absurd and more unjust than the last.

"I have no defence to make," she said, "I know I have behaved contemptibly; self-deception is no excuse. I can explain but not justify myself. I wanted to escape from my eternal self; I was tired of fighting and always in vain. I wanted to throw myself into the life and hopes of somebody else, somebody who had some chance of a real and effective existence. Then other elements of attraction and temptation came; your own memory will tell how many there were. You knew so well how to surround me with these. Everything conspired to tempt me. It seemed as if, in you, I had found a refuge from myself. You have no little power over the emotions, as you are aware. My feeling has been genuine, heaven knows! but, always, always, through it all, I have been aware of this element that repels me; and I have distrusted you."

"I knew you distrusted me," he said gloomily.

"It is useless to say I bitterly regret it all. Naturally, I regret it far more bitterly than you can do. And if my conduct towards you rankles in your heart, you can remember that I have to contend with what is far worse than any sense of being badly treated: the sense of having treated someone badly."

He walked up and down, with bent head and furrowed brows. He looked like some restless wild animal pacing its cage. Intense mortification gave him a strange, malicious expression. He seemed to be casting about for a means of returning the stunning blow that he had received, just at the moment of expected triumph.

"Damn!" he exclaimed with sudden vehemence, and stood still, looking down into Hadria's face, with cruel, glittering eyes.

He glanced furtively around. There was no one in sight. Even little Martha was making mud-pies by the church door. The thick yew trees shut in the churchyard from the village. There was not a sound, far or near, to break the sense of seclusion.

"And you mean to tell me we are to part? You mean to tell me that this is your final decision?"

She bowed her head. With a sudden strong movement, he flung his arms round her and clasped her in an embrace, as fierce and revengeful as the sweep of the wind which sends great trees crashing to the ground, and ships to the bottom of the sea.

"You don't love me?" he enquired.

"Let me go, let me go—coward—madman!"

"You don't love me?" he repeated.

"I hate you—let me go!"

"If this is the last time——"

"I wish I could kill you!"

"Ah, that is the sort of woman I like!"

"You make me know what it is to feel like a murderess!"

"And to look like one, by heaven!"

She wrenched herself away, with a furious effort.

"Coward!" she cried. "I did right to mistrust you!"

Little Martha ran up and offered her a wild heartsease which she had found on one of the graves. Hadria, trembling and white, stooped instinctively to take the flower, and as she did so, the whole significance of the afternoon's revelation broke over her, with fresh intensity. His child!

He stood watching her, with malice in his eyes.

"Come, come, Martha, let us go, let us go," she cried, feverishly.

He moved backwards along the path, as they advanced.

"I have to thank you for bestowing a mother's care on my poor child. You can suppose what a joy the thought has been to me all along."

Hadria flushed.

"You need not thank me," she answered. "As you know, I did it first for her mother's sake, and out of hatred to you, unknown as you then were to me. Now I will do it for her own sake, and out of hatred to you, bitterer than ever."

She stooped to take the child's hand.

"You are most kind, but I could not think of troubling you any longer. I think of taking the little one myself. She will be a comfort to me, and will cheer my lonely home. And besides you see, duty, Mrs. Temperley, duty——"

Hadria caught her breath, and stopped short.

"You are going to take her away from me? You are going to revenge yourself like that?"

"You have made me feel my responsibilities towards my child, as I fear I did not feel them before. I am powerless, of course, to make up for the evil I have done her, but I can make some reparation. I can take her to live with me; I can give her care and attention, I can give her a good education. I have made up my mind."

Hadria stood before him, white as the gravestone.

"You said that vengeance was futile. So it is. Leave the child to me. She shall—she shall want for nothing. Only leave her to me."

"Duty must be our first consideration," he answered suavely.

"I can give her all she needs. Leave her to me."

But the Professor shook his head.

"How do I know you have told me the truth?" Hadria exclaimed, with a flash of fury.

"Do you mean to dispute it?" he asked.

She was silent.

"I think you would find that a mistaken policy," he said, watching her face.

"I don't believe you can take her away!" cried Hadria. "I am acting for her mother, and her mother, not having made herself into your legal property, has some legal right to her own child. I don't believe you can make me give her up."

The Professor looked at her calmly.

"I think you will find that the law has infinite respect for a father's holiest feelings. Would you have it interfere with his awakening aspirations to do his duty towards his child? What a dreadful thought! And then, I think you have some special views on the education of the little one which I cannot entirely approve. After all, a woman has probably to be a wife and mother, on the good old terms that have served the world for a fair number of centuries, when one comes to consider it: it is a pity to allow her to grow up without those dogmas and sentiments that may help to make the position tolerable, if not always satisfactory, to her. Though, as a philosopher, one may see the absurdity of popular prejudices, yet as a practical man, one feels the inexpediency of disturbing the ideas upon which the system depends, and thus adding to the number of malcontents. All very well for those who think things out for themselves; but the education of a girl should be on the old lines, believe me. You will not believe me, I know, so I think it better, for this as well as for other reasons, to take my daughter under my own care. I am extremely sorry that you should have had all this trouble and responsibility for nothing. And I am grieved that your educational idea should be so frustrated, but what am I to do? My duty is obvious!"

"I regret that you did not become a devotee to duty, either a little sooner or a little later," Hadria returned. "For the present, I suppose Martha will remain with Hannah, until your conscience decides what course you will take, and until I see whether you can carry out your threat."

"Certainly, certainly! I don't wish to give you any unnecessary pain."

"You are consideration itself." Hadria stooped to take the child's hand. The little fingers nestled confidingly in her palm.

"Will you say good-bye, Martha?" asked the Professor, stooping to kiss her. Martha drew away, and struck her father a sturdy blow on the face. She had apparently a vague idea that he had been unkind to her protectress, and that he was an enemy.

"Oh, cruel, cruel! What if I don't bring her any more toys?" Martha threatened tears.

"Will you allow us to pass?" said Hadria. The Professor stood aside, and the two went, hand in hand, down the narrow path, and through the wicket gate out of the churchyard. Hadria carried still the drooping yellow heartsease that the little girl had given her.



CHAPTER XLVI.

Professor Theobald made his confession to Lady Engleton on that same night, when he also announced that he found it suddenly necessary to return to town.

It was some time before she recovered from her astonishment and horror. He told his story quietly, and without an effort to excuse himself.

"Of course, though I can't exonerate you, Professor, I blame her more than you," she said finally, "for her standard in the matter was so different from your's—you being a man."

The Professor suppressed a smile. It always seemed strange to him that a woman should be harder on her own sex than on his, but he had no intention of discouraging this lack of esprit de corps; it had its obvious conveniences.

"Did she confess everything to her aunt after her return from Portsmouth?" asked Lady Engleton.

"Yes; I have that letter now."

"In which your name is mentioned?"

"In which my name is mentioned. I sent money to the girl, but she returned it. She said that she hated me, and would not touch it. So I gave the money to the aunt, and told her to send it on, in her own name, to Ellen, for the child's support. Of course I made secrecy a condition. So as a matter of fact, I have acknowledged the child, though not publicly, and I have contributed to its support from its birth."

"But I thought Mrs. Temperley had been supporting it!" cried Lady Engleton.

"Nevertheless I have continued to send the money to the aunt. If Mrs. Temperley chose to take charge of the child, I certainly had nothing to complain of. And I could not openly contribute without declaring myself."

"Dear me, it is all very strange! What would Hadria say if she knew?"

"She does know."

"What, all along?"

"No, since yesterday."

"And how does she take it?"

"She is bitter against me. It is only natural, especially as I told her that I wanted to have the child under my own care."

"Ah, that will be a blow to her. She was wrapped up in the little girl."

Professor Theobald pointed out the difficulties that must begin to crop up, as she grew older. The child could not have the same advantages, in her present circumstances, as the Professor would be able to give her. Lady Engleton admitted that this was true.

"Then may I count on you to plead my cause with Mrs. Temperley?"

"If Hadria believes that it is for the child's good, she will not stand in the way."

"Unless——. You remember that idea of vengeance that she used to have?"

"Oh, she would not let vengeance interfere with the child's welfare!"

"I hope not. You see I don't want to adopt strong measures. The law is always odious."

"The law!" Lady Engleton looked startled. "Are you sure that the law would give you the custody of the child?"

"Sure of the law? My dear lady, one might as well be sure of a woman—pardon me; you know that I regard this quality of infinite flexibility as one of the supreme charms of your sex. I can't say that I feel it to be the supreme charm of the law. Mrs. Temperley claims to have her authority through the mother, because she has the written consent of the aunt to the adoption, but I think this is rather stretching a point."

"I fear it is, since the poor mother was dead at the time."

"I can prove everything I have said to the satisfaction of anybody," continued Theobald, "I think my claim to take charge of my child is well established, and you will admit the wish is not unreasonable."

"It does you great credit, but, oh dear, it will be hard for Mrs. Temperley."

"I fear it will. I am most grieved, but what am I to do? I must consider the best interests of the child."

"Doubtless, but you are a trifle late, Professor, in thinking of that."

"Would you prefer it to be never than late?"

"Heaven forbid!"

"Then I may rely on you to explain the position of affairs to Mrs. Temperley? You will understand that it is a painful subject between us."

Lady Engleton readily promised. She called at the Red House immediately after Professor Theobald's departure. The interview was long.

"Then I have not spoken in vain, dear Hadria?" said Lady Engleton, in her most sympathetic tone. Hadria was very pale.

"On the contrary, you have spoken to convince."

"I knew that you would do nothing to stand in the way of the child."

Hadria was silent.

"I am very sorry about it. You were so devoted to the little girl, and it does seem terribly hard that she should be taken away from you."

"It was my last chance," Hadria muttered, half audibly.

"Then I suppose you will not attempt to resist?"

"No," said Hadria.

"He thinks of leaving Martha with you for another month."

"Really? It has not struck him that perhaps I may not keep her for another month. Now that it is once established that Martha is to be regarded as under his guardianship and authority, and that my jurisdiction ceases, he must take her at once. I will certainly not act for him in that matter. Since you are in his confidence, would you kindly tell him that?"

Lady Engleton looked surprised. "Certainly; I suppose he and his sister will look after the child."

"I shall send Martha up with Hannah."

"It will astonish him."

"Does he really think I am going to act as his deputy?"

"He thought you would be glad to have Martha as long as possible."

"As the child of Ellen Jervis, yes—not as his child."

"I don't see that it matters much, myself," said Lady Engleton, "however, I will let him know."

"By telegram, please, because Martha will be sent to-morrow."

"What breathless haste!"

"Why delay? Hannah will be there—she knows everything about her charge; and if she is only allowed to stay——"

"He told me he meant to keep her."

"I am thankful for that!"

By this time, the story had flown through the village; nothing else was talked of. The excitement was intense. Gossip ran high in hall and cottage. Professor Fortescue alone could not be drawn into the discussion. Lady Engleton took him aside and asked what he really thought about it. All he would say was that the whole affair was deeply tragic. He had no knowledge of the circumstances and feelings involved, and his judgment must therefore be useless. It seemed more practical to try to help one's fellows to resist sin, than to shriek at convicted sinners.

His departure had been fixed for the following morning.

"So you and poor little Martha will go up together by the afternoon train, I suppose," said Lady Engleton.

Hadria spent the rest of the day at Martha's cottage. There were many preparations to make. Hannah was bustling about, her eyes red with weeping. She was heart-broken. She declared that she could never live with "that bad man." But Hadria persuaded her, for Martha's sake, to remain. And Hannah, with another burst of tears, gave an assurance which amounted to a pledge, that she would take a situation with the Father of Evil himself, rather than desert the blessed child.

"I wonder if Martha realizes at all what is going to happen," said Hadria sadly, as she stood watching the little girl playing with her toys. Martha was talking volubly to the blue man. He still clung to a precarious existence (though he was seriously chipped and faded since the Paris days), and had as determined a centre of gravity as ever.

"I don't think she understands, ma'am," said Hannah. "I kep' on tellin' her, and once she cried and said she did not want to go, but she soon forgot it."

Hadria remained till it was time to dress for dinner. Professor Fortescue had promised to dine with her and Valeria on this last evening. Little Martha had been put early to bed, in order that she might have a long rest before the morrow's journey. The golden curls lay like strands of silk on the pillow, the bright eyes were closed in healthful slumber. The child lay, the very image of fresh and pure and sweet human life, with no thought and no dread of the uncertain future that loomed before her. Hannah had gone upstairs to pack her own belongings. The little window was open, as usual, letting the caressing air wander in, as sweet and fresh as the little body and soul to which it had ministered from the beginning.

The busy, loud-ticking clock was working on with cheerful unconcern, as if this were just like every other day whose passing moments it had registered. The hands were pointing towards seven, and the dinner hour was half-past seven. Hadria stood looking down at the sleeping child, her hands resting on the low rail of the cot. There was a desolate look in her eyes, and something more terrible still, almost beyond definition. It was like the last white glow of some vast fire that has been extinguished.

Suddenly—as something that gives way by the run, after a long resistance—she dropped upon her knees beside the cot with a slight cry, and broke into a silent storm of sobs, deep and suppressed. The stillness of the room was unbroken, and one could hear the loud tick-tack of the little clock telling off the seconds with business-like exactness.



CHAPTER LVII.

The evening was sultry. Although the windows of the dining-room were wide open, not a breath of air came in from the garden. A dull, muggy atmosphere brooded sullenly among the masses of the evergreens, and in the thick summer foliage of the old walnut tree on the lawn.

"How oppressive it is!" Valeria exclaimed.

She had been asked to allow a niece of Madame Bertaux, who was to join some friends in Italy, to make the journey under her escort, and the date of her departure was therefore fixed. She had decided to return to town on the morrow, to make her preparations.

Valeria declared impulsively that she would stay at home, after all. She could not bear to leave Hadria for so many lonely months.

"Oh, no, no," cried Hadria in dismay, "don't let me begin already to impoverish other lives!"

Valeria remonstrated but Hadria persisted.

"At least I have learnt that lesson," she said. "I should have been a fool if I hadn't, for my life has been a sermon on the text."

Professor Fortescue gave a little frown, as he often did when some painful idea passed through his mind.

"It is happening everywhere," said Hadria, "the poor, sterile lives exhaust the strong and full ones. I will not be one of those vampire souls, at least not while I have my senses about me."