's victims. She placed side by side the
schoolmistress in her sorrow and disgrace, and the careworn woman at the
Vicarage, with her eleven children, and her shrivelled nature, poor and
dead as an autumn leaf that shivers before the wind. They had both
suffered--so Mrs. Temperley dared to assert--in the same cause. They
were both victims of the same creed. It was a terrible cultus, a savage
idol that had devoured them both, as cruel and insatiable as the brazen
god of old, with his internal fires, which the faithful fed devoutly,
with shrinking girls and screaming children.

"I still fail to understand why you adopt this child," said Valeria. "My
_Caterina_ would never have done it."

"The little creature interests me," said Hadria. "It is a tiny field for
the exercise of the creative forces. Every one has some form of active
amusement. Some like golf, others flirtation. I prefer this sort of
diversion."

"But you have your own children to interest you, surely far more than
this one."

Hadria's face grew set and defiant.

"They represent to me the insult of society--my own private and
particular insult, the tribute exacted of my womanhood. It is through
them that I am to be subdued and humbled. Just once in a way, however,
the thing does not quite 'come off.'"

"What has set you on edge so, I wonder."

"People, traditions, unimpeachable sentiments."

"_Yours_ are not unimpeachable at any rate!" Valeria cried laughing.
"_Caterina_ is an angel compared with you, and yet my publisher has his
doubts about her."

"_Caterina_ would do as I do, I know," said Hadria. "Those who are
looked at askance by the world appeal to my instincts. I shall be able
to teach this child, perhaps, to strike a blow at the system which sent
her mother to a dishonoured grave, while it leaves the man for whose
sake she risked all this, in peace and the odour of sanctity."

Time seemed to be marked, in the sleepy village, by the baby's growth.
Valeria, who thought she was fond of babies, used to accompany Hadria on
her visits to the cottage, but she treated the infant so much as if it
had been a guinea-pig or a rabbit that the nurse was indignant.

The weeks passed in rapid monotony, filled with detail and leaving no
mark behind them, no sign of movement or progress. The cares of the
house, the children, left only limited time for walking, reading,
correspondence, and such music as could be wrung out of a crowded day.
An effort on Hadri