hour. Oh! Henriette, why
did you not listen to your conscience and be honest with me?"

"Hadria, you insult me."

"Why could not Hubert choose one among the hundreds and thousands of
women who would have passed under the yoke without a question, and have
gladly harnessed herself to his chariot by the reins of her own
conscience?"

"I would to heaven he _had_!" Henriette was goaded into replying.

Hadria laughed. Then her brow clouded with pain. "Ah, why did he not
meet my frankness with an equal frankness, at the time? All this trouble
would have been saved us both if _only_ he had been honest."

"My dear, he was in love with you."

"And so he thought himself justified in deceiving me. There is _indeed_
war to the knife between the sexes!" Hadria stood with her elbows on
the back of a high arm-chair, her chin resting on her hands.

"It is not fair to use that word. I tell you that we both confidently
expected that when you had more experience you would be like other women
and adjust yourself sensibly to your conditions."

"I see," said Hadria, "and so it was decided that Hubert was to pretend
to have no objections to my wild ideas, so as to obtain my consent,
trusting to the ponderous bulk of circumstance to hold me flat and
subservient when I no longer had a remedy in my power. You neither of
you lack brains, at any rate." Henriette clenched her hands in the
effort of self-control.

"In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, our forecasts would have come
true," she said. "I mean----"

"That is refreshingly frank," cried Hadria.

"We thought we acted for the best."

"Oh, if it comes to that, the Spanish Inquisitors doubtless thought that
they were acting for the best, when they made bonfires of heretics in
the market-places." Henriette bent her head and clasped the arms of the
chair, tightly.

"Well, if there be any one at fault in the matter, _I_ am the culprit,"
she said in a voice that trembled. "It was _I_ who assured Hubert that
experience would alter you. It was I who represented to him that though
you might be impulsive, even hard at times, you could not persist in a
course that would give pain, and that if you saw that any act of yours
caused him to suffer, you would give it up. I was convinced that your
character was good and noble _au fond_, Hadria, and I have believed it
up to this moment."

Hadria drew herself together with a start, and her face darkened. "You
make me regret that I ever had a