m so often submit to absolute indignity. You remember
when Mrs. Arbuthnot and----"

"Ah, don't!" cried Algitha, flushing. "_Nothing_ ought to induce a
woman to endure that."

"H'm----I suspect the world that we know nothing about, Algitha, has
ways and means of applying the pressure such as you and I scarcely dream
of." Hadria spoke with half-closed eyes that seemed to see deep and far.
"I have read and heard things that have almost taken my breath away! I
feel as if I could _kill_ every man who acquiesces in the present
order of things. It is an insult to every woman alive!"

In Hadria's room that night, Algitha finally decided to delay her going
for another six months, hoping by that time that her mother would have
grown used to the idea, and less opposed to it. Mr. Fullerton dismissed
it, as obviously absurd. But this high-handed treatment roused all the
determination that Algitha had inherited from her father. The six months
had to be extended, in order to procure funds. Algitha had a small
income of her own, left her by her godmother, Miss Fortescue. She put
aside this, for her purpose. Further delay, through Mrs. Trevelyan,
brought the season round again to autumn, before Algitha was able to
make her final preparations for departure.

"Do try and reconcile them to the idea," she said to her sister, as they
stood on the platform of Ballochcoil station, very white and
wretched-looking.

"It breaks my heart to see father look so fixed and angry, and mother so
miserable. I am not going away for ever. Dear me, a day's journey will
bring me back, at any time."

"I'll do my best," said Hadria, "here's your train; what a clumsy
instrument of fate it does look!"

There was not much time for farewells. In a few minutes the train was
steaming out of the station. A solitary figure stood on the platform,
watching the monster curving and diminishing along the line, with its
white smoke soaring merrily into the air, in great rolling masses, that
melted, as if by some incantation, from thick, snow-like whiteness to
rapid annihilation.

CHAPTER V.

As Hadria drove over the winding upland road back to her home, her
thoughts followed her sister into her new existence, and then turned
wistfully backwards to the days that had been marked off into the past
by Algitha's departure. How bright and eager and hopeful they had all
been, how full of enthusiasm and generous ambitions! Even as they talked
of battle, they str