winter waits behind it."

CHAPTER XLIII.

The need for vigilance over that hidden distrust was more peremptory now
than ever. The confession once made, the die once cast, anything but
complete faith and respect became intolerable. Outwardly, affairs seemed
to run on very much as before. But Hadria could scarcely believe that
she was living in the same world. The new fact walked before her,
everywhere. She did not dare to examine it closely. She told herself
that a great joy had come to her, or rather that she had taken the joy
in spite of everything and everybody. She would order her affections
exactly as she chose. If only she could leave Craddock Dene! Hubert and
her parents considered the opinion of the public as of more importance
than anything else in life; for her mother's sake she was forced to
acquiesce; otherwise there was absolutely no reason why she and Hubert
should live under the same roof. It was a mere ceremony kept up on
account of others. That had been acknowledged by him in so many words.
And a wretched, ridiculous, irksome ceremony it was for them both.

Hadria refused now to meet Professor Theobald at the Cottage. His visits
there, which had been timed to meet her, must be paid at a different
hour. He remonstrated in vain. She shewed various other inconsistencies,
as he called them. He used to laugh affectionately at her "glimpses of
conscience," but said he cared nothing for these trifles, since he had
her assurance that she loved him. How he had waited and longed for that!
How hopeless, how impossible it had seemed. He professed to have fallen
in love at first sight. He even declared that Hadria had done the same,
though in a different way, without knowing it. Her mind had resisted
and, for the time, kept her feelings in abeyance. He had watched the
struggle. Her heart, he rejoiced to believe, had responded to him from
the beginning. By dint of repeating this very often, he had half
convinced Hadria that it was so. She preferred to think that her feeling
was of the long-standing and resistless kind.

Sometimes she had intervals of reckless happiness, when all doubts were
kept at bay, and the condition of belief that she assiduously
cultivated, remained with her freely. She felt no secret tug at the
tether. Professor Theobald would then be at his best; grave, thoughtful,
gentle, considerate, responsive to every mood.

When they met at Craddock Place and elsewhere, Hadria suffered miserie