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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But why? But how?” cried Algitha incredulously.

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

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

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

Algitha laughed.

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

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

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

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

“Then I think you haven’t a foible,” said Algitha.

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

Algitha smiled.

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

Algitha laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

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

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

“Come now, I think there are exceptions.”

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

“They believe it,” said Algitha.

“Perhaps so. But it’s very silly.”

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

“A poor compliment to Heaven!” Hadria exclaimed.

“Well, it is not, of course, your conception nor mine of the will of heaven, but it is their’s.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Heaven hasten it!” cried Algitha.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Algitha shook her head anxiously.

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

“Then you think it would be better to be ‘resigned,’ and look after one’s own soul?”

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