never I can find a man-made precept, that
will I carefully disobey; whenever the ruling powers seek to guide me
through my conscience, there shall they fail!"

"You forget that in playing with the feelings of others you are placing
yourself in danger, Hadria. How can you be sure that you won't yourself
fall desperately in love with one of your intended victims?" Hadria's
eyes sparkled.

"I wish to heaven I only could!" she exclaimed. "I would give my right
hand to be in the sway of a complete undoubting, unquestioning passion
that would make all suffering and all life seem worth while; some
emotion to take the place of my lost art, some full and satisfying sense
of union with a human soul to rescue one from the ghastly solitude of
life. But I am raving like a girl. I am crying for the moon."

"Ah, take care, take care, Hadria; that is a mood in which one may
mistake any twopenny-halfpenny little luminary for the impossible moon."

"I think I should be almost ready to bless the beautiful illusion,"
cried Hadria passionately.

CHAPTER XLII.

In the conversation with her sister, the name which Hadria had dreaded
to hear had not been mentioned. She felt as if she could not have met
her sister's eyes, at that moment, had she alluded to Professor
Theobald; for only five minutes before, in the wood, he had spoken to
her in a way that was scarcely possible to misunderstand, though his
wording was so cautious that she could not have taken offence, had she
been so minded, without drawing upon herself the possible retort. "My
dear lady, you have completely misunderstood me." The thought made her
flush painfully. But suppose he really _had_ meant what his words seemed
to imply? He could intend no insult, because he despised, and knew that
she despised, popular social creeds. Into what new realms was she
drifting? There was something attractive to Hadria, in the idea of
defying the world's laws. It was not as the dutiful property of another,
but as herself, a separate and responsible individual, that she would
act and feel, rightly or wrongly, as the case might be. That was a
matter between herself and her conscience, not between herself and the
world or her legal owner.

The Professor's ambiguous and yet startling speech had forced her to
consider her position. She remembered how her instinct had always been
to hold him aloof from her life, just because, as she now began to
believe, there was something in him that p