from the garden. A dull, muggy
atmosphere brooded sullenly among the masses of the evergreens, and in
the thick summer foliage of the old walnut tree on the lawn.

"How oppressive it is!" Valeria exclaimed.

She had been asked to allow a niece of Madame Bertaux, who was to join
some friends in Italy, to make the journey under her escort, and the
date of her departure was therefore fixed. She had decided to return to
town on the morrow, to make her preparations.

Valeria declared impulsively that she would stay at home, after all. She
could not bear to leave Hadria for so many lonely months.

"Oh, no, no," cried Hadria in dismay, "don't let me begin _already_ to
impoverish other lives!"

Valeria remonstrated but Hadria persisted.

"At least I have learnt _that_ lesson," she said. "I should have been a
fool if I hadn't, for my life has been a sermon on the text."

Professor Fortescue gave a little frown, as he often did when some
painful idea passed through his mind.

"It is happening everywhere," said Hadria, "the poor, sterile lives
exhaust the strong and full ones. I will not be one of those vampire
souls, at least not while I have my senses about me."

Again, the little frown of pain contracted the Professor's brow.

The dusk had invaded the dinner table, but they had not thought of
candles. They went straight out to the still garden. Valeria had a fan,
with which she vainly tried to overcome the expression of the
atmosphere. She was very low-spirited. Hadria looked ill and exhausted.
Little Martha's name was not mentioned. It was too sore a subject.

"I can't bear the idea of leaving you, Hadria, especially when you talk
like that. I wish, _how_ I wish, that some way could be found out of
this labyrinth. Is this sort of thing to be the end of all the grand new
hopes and efforts of women? Is all our force to be killed and
overwhelmed in this absurd way?"

"Ah, no, not all, in heaven's name!"

"But if women won't repudiate, in practice, the claims that they hold to
be unjust, in theory, how can they hope to escape? We may talk to all
eternity, if we don't act."

Hadria shrugged her shoulders.

"Your reasoning is indisputable, but what can one do? There _are_
cases----in short, some things are impossible!"

Valeria was silent. "I have thought, at times, that you might make a
better stand," she said at last, clinging still to her theory of the
sovereignty of the will.

Hadria did not reply.

The Pr