retrospect seemed to have
passed with incredible swiftness, the months that followed them were
heavy and slow with trouble. But from the very first, that is, from the
moment when Grace saw Paul kiss Maggie in the evening garden, battle
was declared. Maggie might not know it, but it was so-and Grace knew it
very well.

It may be said, however, in Grace's defence that she gave Maggie every
chance. She marvelled at her own patience. For two years after that
moment, when she decided that Maggie was "queer," and that her beloved
Paul was in real danger of his losing his soul because of that
"queerness," she held her hand. She was not naturally a patient
woman-she was not introspective enough to be that--and she held no
brief for Maggie. Nevertheless for two whole years she held her hand...

They were, all three, in that ugly house, figures moving in the dark.
Grace simply knew, as the months passed, that she disliked and feared
Maggie more and more; Paul knew that as the months passed--well, what
he knew will appear in the following pages. And Maggie? She only knew
that it needed all her endurance and stubborn will to force herself to
accept this life as her life. She must-she must. To give way meant to
run away, and to run away meant to long for what she could not have,
and loneliness and defeat. She would make this into a success; she
would care for Paul although she could not give him all that he needed.
She would and she could... Every morning as she lay awake in the big
double-bed with the brass knobs at the bed-foot winking at her in the
early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man
who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her. Poor child, her battle with
Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her...

Grace, on her side, was not a bad woman, she was simply a stupid one.
She disliked Maggie for what seemed to her most admirable reasons and,
as that dislike slowly, slowly turned into hatred, her
self-justification only hardened.

Until that moment, when she saw a faded patch of wall-paper on the wall
instead of her mother's portrait, she had no doubts whatever about the
success of what she considered her choice. Maggie was a "dear," young,
ignorant, helpless, but the very wife for Paul. Then slowly, slowly,
the picture changed. Maggie was obstinate, Maggie was careless, Maggie
was selfish, idle, lazy, irreligious--at last, Maggie was "queer."

Then, when in the dusk