n't want to. I was . . . fond of him. But how can I help
it? And supposing I did? What of it? Yes, what of it? Who was your son
but a man?'

'My son?'

'Your son. A distinction, not a title. Your son bears part of the
responsibility of making me what I am. He came last but he might have
come first, and I tell you that the worker of the eleventh hour is
guilty equally with the worker of the first. Your son was nothing and I
nothing but pawns in the game, little figures which the Society you're
so proud of shifts and breaks. He bought my womanhood; he contributed to
my degradation. What else but degradation did you offer me?'

Mrs Holt was weeping now.

'I am a woman, and the world has no use for me. Your Society taught me
nothing. Or rather it taught me to dance, to speak a foreign language
badly, to make myself an ornament, a pleasure to man. Then it threw me
down from my pedestal, knowing nothing, without a profession, a trade, a
friend, or a penny. And then your Society waved before my eyes the
lily-white banner of purity, while it fed me and treated me like a dog.
When I gave it what it wanted, for there's only one thing it wants from
a woman whom nothing has been taught but that which every woman knows,
then it covered me with gifts. A curse on your Society. A Society of
men, crushing, grinding down women, sweating their labour, starving
their brains, urging them on to the surrender of what makes a woman
worth while. Ah . . . ah. . . .'

Breath failed her. Mrs Holt was weeping silently in her hands in utter
abandonment.

'I'm going,' said Victoria hoarsely. She picked up a handkerchief and
dabbed her eyes.

As she opened the door the figure moved on the bed, opened its eyes.
Their last lingering look was for the woman at the door.

CHAPTER XX

THE squire of Cumberleigh was not sorry that 'The Retreat' had found a
tenant at last. The house belonged to him, and he might have let it many
times over; but so conservative and aristocratic was his disposition
that he preferred to sacrifice his rent rather than have anyone who was
undesirable in the neighbourhood. Yet, in the case of the lady who had
now occupied the house for some three weeks, though the strictest
enquiries had been made concerning her, both in Cumberleigh and the
surrounding district, nothing could be ascertained beyond the scanty
facts that she was a widow, well-to-do and had been abroad a good deal.
The squire had seen her on two sep