ws trampling one another down,
growing hard and ungenerous. And then the vulgarity, the irreverence:
they are almost identical, I think. One grows very sick and sorry at
times amidst the cruelty and the baseness that threaten to destroy
one's courage and one's hope. I know that human nature has in it a germ
of nobility that will save it, in the long run, but meanwhile things
seem sadly out of joint."

"Is that the order of the universe?" asked Hadria.

"No, I think it is rather the disorder of man's nature," he replied.

Hadria asked if he would return to tea at the Red House. The Professor
said he would like to call and see Hubert, but proposed a rest on the
terrace, as it was still early in the afternoon.

"I used to avoid the place," he said, "but I made a mistake. I have
resolved to face the memories: it is better."

It was the first time that he had ever referred, in Hadria's presence,
to the tragedy of the Priory.

"I have often wished to speak to you about my wife," he said slowly, as
they sat down on the old seat, on the terrace. "I have felt that you
would understand the whole sad story, and I hoped that some day you
would know it." He paused and then added, "It has often been a comfort
to me to remember that you were in the world, for it made me feel less
lonely. I felt in you some new--what can I call it? instinct, impulse,
inspiration, which ran you straight against all the hardest stone walls
that intersect the pathways of this ridiculous old world. And, strange
to say, it is the very element in you that sets you at loggerheads with
others, that enabled me to understand you."

Hadria looked bewildered.

"To tell you the truth, I have always wondered why women have never felt
as I am sure you feel towards life. You remember that day at Dunaghee
when you were so annoyed at my guessing your thoughts. They were
unmistakeable to one who shared them. Your sex has always been a riddle
to me; there seemed to be something abject in their nature, even among
the noblest of them. But you are no riddle. While I think you are the
least simple woman I ever met, you are to me the easiest to
understand."

"And yet I remember your telling me the exact contrary," said Hadria.

"That was before I had caught the connecting thread. Had I been a woman,
I believe that life and my place in it would have affected me exactly as
it affects you."

Hadria coloured over cheek and brow. It was so strange, so startling, so
de