ted to know in what light he
regarded it.

Bertram gazed at her hard.

"Why, Frida," he said, "it's right, of course, to go. The thing that's
WRONG is to stop with that man one minute longer than's absolutely
necessary. You don't love him--you never loved him; or, if you ever
did, you've long since ceased to do so. Well, then, it's a dishonour
to yourself to spend one more day with him. How can you submit to the
hateful endearments of a man you don't love or care for? How wrong to
yourself, how infinitely more wrong to your still unborn and unbegotten
children! Would you consent to become the mother of sons and daughters
by a man whose whole character is utterly repugnant to you? Nature
has given us this divine instinct of love within, to tell us with what
persons we should spontaneously unite: will you fly in her face and
unite with a man whom you feel and know to be wholly unworthy of you?
With us, such conduct would be considered disgraceful. We think every
man and woman should be free to do as they will with their own persons;
for that is the very basis and foundation of personal liberty. But if
any man or woman were openly to confess they yielded their persons to
another for any other reason than because the strongest sympathy and
love compelled them, we should silently despise them. If you don't love
Monteith, it's your duty to him, and still more your duty to yourself
and your unborn children, at once to leave him; if you DO love me, it's
your duty to me, and still more your duty to yourself and our
unborn children, at once to cleave to me. Don't let any sophisms of
taboo-mongers come in to obscure that plain natural duty. Do right
first; let all else go. For one of yourselves, a poet of your own, has
said truly:

'Because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'"

Frida looked up at him with admiration in her big black eyes. She had
found the truth, and the truth had made her free.

"O Bertram," she cried with a tremor, "it's good to be like you. I felt
from the very first how infinitely you differed from the men about me.
You seemed so much greater and higher and nobler. How grateful I ought
to be to Robert Monteith for having spoken to me yesterday and forbidden
me to see you! for if he hadn't, you might never have kissed me
last night, and then I might never have seen things as I see them at
present."

There was another long pause; for the best things we