Rudd had flashed
upon her as revelation of a clear possibility where hitherto she had
seen only mocking phantoms of futile desire. Grace was an actress; no
matter by what course, to this she had attained. This man, Scawthorne,
spoke of the theatrical life as one to whom all its details were
familiar; acquaintance with him of a sudden bridged over the chasm
which had seemed impassable. Would he come again to see her? Had her
involuntary reserve put an end to any interest he might have felt in
her? Of him personally she thought not at all; she could not have
recalled his features; he was a mere abstraction, the representative of
a wild hope which his conversation had inspired.

From that day the character of her suffering was altered; it became
less womanly, it defied weakness and grew to a fever of fierce,
unscrupulous rebellion. Whenever she thought of Sidney Kirkwood, the
injury he was inflicting upon her pride rankled into bitter resentment,
unsoftened by the despairing thought of self-subdual which had at times
visited her sick weariness. She bore her degradations with the sullen
indifference of one who is supported by the hope of a future revenge.
The disease inherent in her being, that deadly outcome of social
tyranny which perverts the generous elements of youth into mere seeds
of destruction, developed day by day, blighting her heart, corrupting
her moral sense, even setting marks of evil upon the beauty of her
countenance. A passionate desire of self-assertion familiarised her
with projects, with ideas, which formerly she had glanced at only to
dismiss as ignoble. In proportion as her bodily health failed, the
worst possibilities of her character came into prominence. Like a
creature that is beset by unrelenting forces, she summoned and surveyed
all the craft faculties lurking in the dark places of her nature;
theoretic y she had now accepted every debasing compact by which a
woman can spite herself on the world's injustice. Self-assertion; to be
no longer an unregarded atom in the mass of those who are born only to
labour for others; to find play for the strength and the passion which,
by no choice of her own, distinguished her from the tame slave.
Sometimes in the silence of night she suffered from a dreadful need of
crying aloud, of uttering her anguish in a scream like that of
insanity. She stifled it only by crushing her face into the pillow
until the hysterical fit had passed, and she lay like one dead.