suits me exactly. It uses up my energies; yet, in spite of the really
busy life I lead, I literally have more leisure than I used to have at
home, where all through the day, there was some little detail to be
attended to, some call to make, some convention to offer incense to,
some prejudice to respect. Here, once my day's work is over, it _is_
over, and I have good solid hours of leisure. I feel that I have earned
those hours when they come; also that I have earned a right to my keep,
as Wilfrid Burton, the socialist, puts it somewhat crudely. When I go to
bed at night, I can say: 'Because of me, this day, heavy hearts have
been made a little lighter.' I hear all sorts of opinions, and see all
sorts of people. I never was so happy in my life."

It was Hadria's habit still to take solitary rambles over the country.
A passionate lover of Nature, she found endless pleasure in its
ever-changing aspects. Yet of late, a new feeling had begun to mutter
angrily within her: a resentment against these familiar sights and
sounds, because they were the boundaries of her horizon. She hated the
line of the round breezy hills where the row of fir-trees stood against
the sky, because that was the edge of her world, and she wanted to see
what was beyond. She must and would see what was beyond, some day. Her
hope was always vague; for if she dared to wonder how the curtain of
life was to be lifted, she had to face the fact that there was no
reasonable prospect of such a lifting. Still, the utter horror of living
on always, in this fashion, seemed to prove it impossible.

On one dim afternoon, when the sun was descending, Hadria's solitary
figure was noticed by a white-haired lady, presumably a tourist, who had
stopped to ask a question of some farm labourers, working in a field.
She ceased to listen to the information, on the subject of Dunaghee,
that was given to her in a broad Scottish dialect. The whole scene,
which an instant before had impressed her as one of beauty and peace,
suddenly focussed itself round the dark figure, and grew sinister in its
aspect. At that moment, nothing would have persuaded the onlooker that
the hastening figure was not hastening towards misfortune.

A woman of impulse, she set off in purposeless pursuit. Hadria's pace
was very rapid; she was trying to outrun thought. It was impossible to
live without hope, yet hope, in this forlorn land, was growing faint
and tired.

Her pursuer was a remarkable-looki