Mary had known what wretchedness was during her old life at Brixton; but that was almost happiness to the mental agony she was now experiencing. For the image of one man was ever in her mind; the sound of his voice rang in her ears; and when the remembrance of his burning kisses came to her, as it often did, her cheek flushed and her heart beat with a flood of new emotions that terrified her.

She could not put him out of her thoughts. She hardly knew whether she loved him; but, with the exception of Mrs. King, he was her only friend, the only human being she liked and venerated; and though to be with him raised only thoughts of pain, yet when she was away from him, there came to her a worse misery, a want, that made her wish for that sweet pain again.

But it could not be; she must not love him; she, one of "the Sisters," committed to a Cause that killed its children! No, it could not be! She must suffer and endure in silence, but never know love.

A first, great love filling her being and a fearful consciousness of its hopelessness—so great a delight within her grasp and duty preventing her from seizing it—such was the mental conflict, full of agony, that had now come to her young life.

Her feverish restlessness undermined her health. When alone at night, she would sob through the long hours in broken-hearted despair. She would go through her duties by day with a listless languor.

Catherine King noticed how pale and thin and sad the girl was becoming; but shrewd as she was, she had no suspicions as to the true cause of this change.

I have said that a great affection had sprung up between the Chief of the Secret Society and her disciple. This affection was ever deepening. The relation between them had long ceased to be that of mistress and servant; it was no longer merely that of teacher and pupil; but they had become to each other as mother and daughter. Catherine represented to the outside world that Mary was her niece; but the girl had of late fallen into the way of calling her protectress, when they were alone together, by the more affectionate name of mother.

One dismal November afternoon, before the lights were lit, Catherine King was sitting in her chair by the fire sewing. Mary was sitting by the window, listless, motionless, looking out to the street with a strange, sad air, as of one that despaired yet was resigned.

The elder woman occasionally cast keen glances towards her, and at last, putting down her work, said, "Mary!"

"Yes, mother!" replied the girl, starting suddenly from her reverie, while a bright flush came to her pale cheeks for a moment.

"You seem ill, Mary."

"Yes, mother; I am not very well," she replied in a low, apathetic voice.

"What is it? There seems to be something on your mind. Is it the idea of the work that has to be done soon that is weighing on you?"

"No, no! I know it is my duty, mother. I am proud to be a helper in the Cause. Oh, no! mother, it is not that.... I don't know what it is; but I fear I am weak and foolish. I am getting nervous.... I am a coward and unfit for so great a mission."

"Strange! that is not like you! I think a little change of air would do you good. We will take a holiday, Mary, and go to the sea-side."

"Thank you, mother; how very kind you are to me! but indeed I do not deserve it."

"You are a good girl, Mary. Happy for me was the day on which I first met you. Your companionship has been very dear to me. I, who thought that I had altogether given up tender emotions, that my whole being was absorbed in my work for Humanity, that I would never again care for any individual—I have come to love you dearly." She continued absently, not intending her words for the girl's ears: "Yes! I half regret sometimes that you should have to be one of the workers, poor girl"—then recollecting herself again, and putting aside her unwonted softness for her usual exalted zeal for Humanity that over-rode all lesser sentiments—"but this is nonsense. How nobler our lives, how happier even, though severing us from mankind and human sympathies, than the weak loves and affections of the ordinary men and women! How glorious to feel we are so far above them!"

She did not suspect how she sent the arrow home to Mary's heart. Tears came to the girl's eyes. The sacrifice of human affections might be a little thing to the enthusiast, but to her, alas! it meant death. But she had determined that she would not waver in her allegiance; for the wild theories were to her great truths. She had such entire faith in her protectress, that she would not have hesitated to tear her heart out for the Chief and the Cause.

"Mother!" she cried out at last. "Oh, mother! you must love me! I am so weak, I do not feel fit for the life that is before me. By myself I can do nothing. I shall be stronger if I may lean on you—if I may see you often—if you will let me love you. I cannot explain what I mean—I do not understand it myself." She spoke in a pitiful voice that expressed the great yearning that was in her.

Catherine King looked at the girl in silence for some moments, and the quivering of her lips showed that she was struggling with some strong emotion; then she said:

"I fear we are entering on a dangerous path—but, Mary! Mary! I do love you ... very much indeed—dear"—she hesitated over the last word as if ashamed of using it; she had never used it before—"too well, perhaps ... for it is our duty to look far beyond individual sympathies; we must steel our hearts; we must be of stern stuff; but I do love you, child. Come here, that I may kiss you!"

Mary knew what deep affection it must be to make this woman confess to such weakness. She came up to the chair where Catherine was sitting, and knelt before her. The woman kissed her on her forehead, and gently stroked the soft hair of the girl, feeling a tenderness in her heart that she had not known for many long years.

"There can be no harm in our loving each other, I think, Mary," she said, doubtfully, and with a tremulousness in her one as of consciousness of guilt, as of one hesitating on the brink of some sweet, strong temptation to crime—"no harm—but we must not be too affectionate; we must not fear for each other, or we shall be unnerved when the battle begins. Now, Mary! don't! don't! My dear child, I cannot bear it!" for the girl had seized her hand and was kissing it passionately, while she shook with a paroxysm of sobs.

"Oh, mother! mother! I am so miserable—without your love I should die! It is the only thing that makes life bearable. I cannot be strong and brave like you"—raising her head and looking admiringly at her through her tears—"but your love will make me braver too. Why are you not angry with me for being so silly and so weak?"

The poor child hardly suspected herself what this longing for affection signified. She did not yet know her own heart altogether; she did not confess to herself that it was the strange, budding love of a maiden for a man that brought on this need for the sympathy of one of her own sex.

"Weak, weak!" replied Catherine, pensively; "no I do not think that you are weak—the reverse in this case. These old moral instincts, or whatever we like to call them—this intense like to adopting means condemned by antique ethics, for the working of righteous ends, are difficult to contend with. You have strong instincts which are in opposition to your sense of duty. Had you been weaker-minded in this conflict, you would have abandoned duty and followed instinct. In you, both the sense of duty and the instinct are very strong. It is because of this—because your nature is strong and not weak—that the conflict for you is a terrible one—that you are a martyr—as such a martyr as Ridley or Latimer, who gave up all that natural instinct makes dear—even life, and things dearer than life, for duty's sake."

Mary felt that what the Chief said was very true. The instinctive horror at the nature of her duties preyed on her mind; but she was ashamed as she considered that she was quite undeserving of these words of praise, knowing as she did that there was now another element that complicated the conflict, the nature of which her kind protectress little guessed.

It has been shown how Mary's Brixton education had made of her a liar; but somehow although her latter training in Maida-Vale, with its Jesuitical teachings as to all means being good if for the advancement of the "Cause," was hardly calculated to cure her of this vice, she could never lie to her benefactress; and now that she had known Dr. Duncan, she had begun to feel a repugnance to deceiving anyone at all. Such is the power of love. The woman looks up to the lord of her heart, and if he be good, she will seek to be good too; she wonders that he can look on her as an angel, and she endeavours to come as near as possible to his ideal.

So it was that Mary felt a great desire to reveal the fact of her dangerous friendship with Dr. Duncan to her protectress. She could not deceive her any longer, and determined to unburden her mind at once. So she commenced by timidly asking, "Mother, have you ever ... loved? Have you ever loved ... anyone beside me?" Then she paused, in confusion, not knowing how to proceed, a deep blush suffusing her cheeks.

Catherine King stared at her, but evidently did not understand her meaning. No one possessed keener powers of observation than the Chief of the Sisterhood; but when pondering over subjects connected with the Cause she would often become absent-minded, and notice nothing. She had now drifted into this condition, so replied to Mary in a rhapsodical tone: "Oh, love, love! what a deep-rooted instinct of life thou art! But we ill-fated, born into a miserable age, must trample on our instincts for Humanity's sake. Until the old order is altogether changed for the new, such as you and I, Mary, can have nothing to do with love."

The girl's courage melted—she dared not tell her tale just then, whilst Catherine King was in that mood, so she replied, submissively: "So be it ... so long as I have your love, mother ... for oh, I am weak, miserably weak, and love I must have; or I will fail!"

Catherine spoke again: "Love is, indeed, a noble instinct, Mary, but of all loves love of Humanity is the most noble, the most unselfish. We must sacrifice all lesser loves for that one. Future ages will look back to us as the martyrs of Humanity, my child," and as she uttered these words the woman's eyes blazed with enthusiasm, and assumed that far-away look that was usual to them.

The conversation here dropped. "Martyrs! Martyrs, indeed!" thought the poor girl, and she fell again into her miserable brooding, and her soul grew darker and darker, as the early night settled down on the city, and the gas-lights came out one by one in the dismal, rainy street.

But on the other hand, to the woman absorbed in her dream of Humanity, the dingy little room faded away; and to her exalted mind vision after vision, each more glorious than the last, arose—of future peoples, perfect, happy, good; and her brain whirled with the magnificence of her fancies, and her soul wandered in a paradise of beautiful imaginations; so that there came to her expressive features a nobility, such as the face of some saint of old drunk with God, on the point of martyrdom, might have worn.

Catherine King was perplexed—she could perceive that the girl's illness was mental rather than physical. She considered that it was the horror of the nature of her duties working on a young mind; but she could hardly account for the recent rather sudden aggravation of these symptoms in her pupil.

Loving the girl as she did, she was much troubled. Remorse for the agony to which she was dooming this young life tormented her; but her thorough belief in the righteousness of her scheme made her stifle these natural feelings.—"Yes, it must be—the child must be sacrificed."