of the conservative and traditional
beliefs in which she had been reared was impossible for her of all
women; it would have seemed to her that she was thereby leaving those
two suffering ones, whom only her love sheltered, still lonelier in
death. So, beneath the clatter of talk and opinion, run the deep
omnipotent tides of our real being.

But if the mind resisted, the heart felt, and therewith, the soul--that
total personality which absorbs and transmutes the contradictions of
life--grew kinder and gentler within her.

One day, after a discussion on votes for women which had taken place
beside Marion's sofa, Diana, when the talkers were gone, had thrown
herself on her friend.

"Dear, you can't wish it!--you can't believe it! To brutalize--unsex
us!"

Marion raised herself on her elbow, and looked down the narrow cross
street beneath the windows of her lodging. It was a stifling evening.
The street was strewn with refuse, the odors from it filled the room.
Ragged children with smeared faces were sitting or playing listlessly in
the gutters. The public-house at the corner was full of animation, and
women were passing in and out. Through the roar of traffic from the main
street beyond a nearer sound persisted: a note of wailing--the
wailing of babes.

"There are the unsexed!" said Marion, panting. "Is their brutalization
the price we pay for our refinement?" Then, as she sank back: "Try
anything--everything--to change that."

Diana pressed the speaker's hand to her lips.

But from Marion Vincent, the girl's thoughts, as she wandered in the
summer garden, had passed on to the news which Mrs. Roughsedge had
brought her. Oliver was speaking every night, almost, in the villages
round Beechcote. Last week he had spoken at Beechcote itself. Since Mrs.
Roughsedge's visit, Diana had borrowed the local paper from Brown, and
had read two of Oliver's speeches therein reported. As she looked up to
the downs, or caught through the nearer trees the lines of distant
woods, it was as though the whole scene--earth and air--were once more
haunted for her by Oliver--his presence--his voice. Beechcote lay on the
high-road from Tallyn to Dunscombe, the chief town of the division.
Several times a week, at least, he must pass the gate. At any moment
they might meet face to face.

The sooner the better! Unless she abandoned Beechcote, they must learn
to meet on the footing of ordinary acquaintances; and it were best
done quickly.