ntervals of sleeplessness at night, and presently during the day, the
danger and ugliness of her outlook began to trouble her. She was still,
she perceived, being watched, but whether that was because her husband
had failed to change whatever orders he had given, or because he was
still keeping himself minutely informed of her movements, she could not
tell. She was now constantly with him, and except for small spiteful
outbreaks and occasional intervals of still and silent malignity, he
tolerated and utilized her attentions. It was clear his jealousy of her
rankled, a jealousy that made him even resentful at her health and ready
to complain of any brightness of eye or vigour of movement. They had
drifted far apart from the possibility of any real discussion of the
hostels since that talk in the twilit study. To re-open that now or to
complain of the shadowing pursuer who dogged her steps abroad would
have been to precipitate Mr. Brumley's dismissal.

Even at the cost of letting things drift at the hostels for a time she
wished to avoid that question. She would not see him, but she would not
shut the door upon him. So far as the detective was concerned she could
avoid discussion by pretending to be unaware of his existence, and as
for the hostels--the hostels each day were left until the morrow.

She had learnt many things since the days of her first rebellion, and
she knew now that this matter of the man friend and nothing else in the
world is the central issue in the emancipation of women. The difficulty
of him is latent in every other restriction of which women complain. The
complete emancipation of women will come with complete emancipation of
humanity from jealousy--and no sooner. All other emancipations are shams
until a woman may go about as freely with this man as with that, and
nothing remains for emancipation when she can. In the innocence of her
first revolt this question of friendship had seemed to Lady Harman the
simplest, most reasonable of minor concessions, but that was simply
because Mr. Brumley hadn't in those days been talking of love to her,
nor she been peeping through that once locked door. Now she perceived
how entirely Sir Isaac was by his standards justified.

And after all that was recognized she remained indisposed to give up Mr.
Brumley.

Yet her sense of evil things happening in the hostels was a deepening
distress. It troubled her so much that she took the disagreeable step of
asking Mrs.