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!”