violently forward. Her life had
been convulsed and overthrown by the hazard of destiny, and she could
have no peace now until she had repaired and re-established it. At no
matter what risk, the thing must be accomplished quickly... quickly.

CHAPTER IV
THE CALL FROM BRIGHTON

I

On the next afternoon, at a quarter-past two, Hilda and Janet were
sitting together in the breakfast-room. The house was still. The men
were either theoretically or practically at business. Alicia was at
school. Mrs. Orgreave lay upstairs. The servants had cleared away and
washed up the dinner-things, and had dined themselves. The kitchen had
been cleansed and put in order, and every fire replenished. Two of the
servants were in their own chambers, enfranchised for an hour: one only
remained on duty. All six women had the feeling, which comes to most
women at a certain moment in each day, that life had, for a time,
deteriorated into the purposeless and the futile; and that it waited, as
in a trance, until some external masculine event, expected or
unforeseen, should renew its virtue and its energy.

Hilda was in half a mind to tell Janet the history of the past year. She
had wakened up in the night, and perceived with dreadful clearness that
trouble lay in front of her. The relations between herself and Edwin
Clayhanger were developing with the most dizzy rapidity, and in a
direction which she desired, but it would be impossible for her, if she
fostered the relations, to continue to keep Edwin in ignorance of the
fact that, having been known for about a fortnight as Mrs. George
Cannon, she was not what he supposed her to be. With imagination on
fire, she was anticipating the rendezvous at three o'clock. She reached
forward to it in ecstasy; but she might not enjoy it, save at the price
which her conscience exacted. She had to say to Edwin Clayhanger that
she had been the victim of a bigamist. Could she say it to him? She had
not been able to say it even to Janet Orgreave.... She would say it
first to Janet. There, in the breakfast-room, she would say it. If it
killed her to say it, she would say it. She must at any cost be able to
respect herself, and, as matters stood, she could not respect herself.

Janet, on her knees, was idly arranging books on one of the lower
bookshelves. In sheer nervousness, Hilda also dropped to her knees on
the hearthrug, and began to worry the fire with the poker.

"I say, Janet," she began.

"Yes?"