n hopeless from the first. But you shan't make Paul hate me.
You've been trying your hardest, but you shan't succeed. I know that
I'm stupid and careless, but it's no use my pretending to be good and
quiet and obedient. I'm not good. I'm not quiet. I'm not obedient. I'm
going to be myself now. I'm going to have the friends I want and do the
things I want."

Grace moved back as though she thought that Maggie were going to strike
her.

"You're wicked," she said. "What about those letters in your drawer?
You've never loved Paul."

"So you've been opening my drawers?" said Maggie. "You're worse than I,
Grace. I never opened any one's drawers nor read letters I shouldn't.
But it doesn't matter. There's nothing I want to hide. Paul knows all
about it. I'm not ashamed."

"No, you're not," Grace's eyes were large with terror. "You're ashamed
at nothing. You've made every one in the place laugh at us. You've
ruined Paul's life here--yes, you have. But you don't care. Do you
think I mind for myself? But I love Paul, and I've looked after him all
his life, and he was happy until you came--yes, he was. You've made us
all laughed at. You're bad all through, Maggie, and the laws of the
Church aren't anything to you at all."

There was a pause. Maggie, a little calmer, realised Grace, who had
sunk into a chair. She saw that stout middle-aged woman with the flat
expressionless face and the dull eyes. She saw the flabby hands
nervously trembling, and she longed suddenly to be kind and
affectionate.

"Oh, Grace," she cried. "I know I've been everything I shouldn't, only
don't you see I can't give up my friends? And I told Paul before we
married that I'd loved some one else and wasn't religious. But perhaps
it isn't too late. Let's be friends. I'll try harder than ever before--"

Then she saw, in the way that Grace shrank back, her eyes staring with
the glazed fascination that a bird has for a snake, that there was more
than dislike and jealousy here, there was the wild unreasoning fear
that a child has for the dark.

"Am I like that?" was her own instinctive shuddering thought. Then,
almost running, she rushed up to her bedroom.

CHAPTER VII

DEATH OF AUNT ANNE

Maggie, after that flight, faced her empty room with a sense of horror.
Was there, truly, then, something awful about her? The child (for she
was indeed nothing more) looked into her glass, standing on tip-toe
that she might peer sufficiently and saw her fa