position (be that right or wrong) was forced on the woman in both
cases by fraud, and is then used as a pretext to exact from her the
desired conduct; what the author of the fraud euphoniously calls
'duty.'"

"You are positively insulting!" cried Henriette, rising.

By this time, Hadria had allowed the doll to slip back, and its limp
body was hanging down disconsolately from her elbow, although she was
clutching it, with absent-minded anxiety, to her side, in the hope of
arresting its threatened fall.

"Oh, look at dolly, look, look!" cried Martha reproachfully. Hadria
seized its legs and pulled it back again, murmuring some consolatory
promise to its mistress.

"It is strange how you succeed in putting me on the defensive,
Henriette--I who have been wronged. A horrible wrong it is too. It has
ruined my life. You will never know all that it implies, never, never,
though I talk till Doomsday. Nobody will--except Professor Fortescue."

Henriette gave a horrified gesture. "I believe you are in love with that
man. _That_ is the cause of all this wild conduct."

Miss Temperley had lost self-control for a moment.

Hadria looked at her steadily.

"I beg your pardon. I spoke in haste, Hadria. You have your faults, but
Hubert has nothing to fear from you in that respect, I am sure."

"Really?" Hadria had come forward and was standing with her left elbow
on the mantel-piece, the doll still tucked under her right arm. "And you
think that I would, at all hazards, respect a legal tie which no feeling
consecrates?"

"I do you that justice," murmured Henriette, turning very white.

"You think that I should regard myself as so completely the property of
a man whom I do not love, and who actively dislikes me, as to hold my
very feelings in trust for him. Disabuse yourself of that idea,
Henriette. I claim rights over myself, and I will hold myself in pawn
for no man. This is no news either to you or to Hubert. Why pretend that
it is?"

Henriette covered her face with her hands.

"I can but hope," she said at length, "that even now you are saying
these horrible things out of mere opposition. I cannot, I simply
_cannot_ believe, that you would bring disgrace upon us all."

"If you chose to regard it as a disgrace that I should make so bold as
to lay claim to myself, that, it seems to me, would be your own fault."
Henriette sprang forward white and trembling, and clutched Hadria's arm
excitedly.

"Ah! you _could_ not! you