do, Hadria?"

Hadria gave a faint smile.

She did not speak for some time, and when she did, her words seemed to
have no direct reference to Valeria's question.

"I believe that there are thousands and thousands of women whose lives
have run on parallel lines with mine."

She recalled a strange and grotesque vision, or waking-dream, that she
had dreamt a few nights before: of a vast abyss, black and silent, which
had to be filled up to the top with the bodies of women, hurled down to
the depths of the pit of darkness, in order that the survivors might, at
last, walk over in safety. Human bodies take but little room, and the
abyss seemed to swallow them, as some greedy animal its prey. But Hadria
knew, in her dream, that some day it would have claimed its last victim,
and the surface would be level and solid, so that people would come and
go, scarcely remembering that beneath their feet was once a chasm into
which throbbing lives had to descend, to darkness and a living death.

Valeria looked anxious and ill at ease. She watched Hadria's face.

She was longing to urge her to leave Craddock Dene, but was deterred by
the knowledge of the uselessness of such advice. Hadria could not take
it.

"I chafe against these situations!" cried Valeria. "I am so unused, in
my own life, to such tethers and limitations. They would drive me
crazy!"

"Oh," Hadria exclaimed, with an amused smile, "this is a new cry!"

"I don't care," said Valeria discontentedly. "I never supposed that one
_could_ be tied hand and foot, in this way. I should never stand it. It
is intolerable!"

"These are what you have frequently commended to me as 'home ties,'"
said Hadria.

"Oh, but it is impossible!"

"You attack the family!" cried the Professor.

"If the family makes itself ridiculous----?"

The Professor and Hadria laughed. Valeria was growing excited.

"The natural instinct of man to get his fun at his neighbour's expense
meets with wholesome rebuffs in the outer world," said the Professor,
"but in the family it has its chance. That's why the family is so
popular."

Valeria, with her wonted capriciousness, veered round in defence of the
institution that she had been just jeering at.

"Well, after all, it is the order of Nature to have one's fun at the
expense of someone, and I don't believe we shall ever be able to
practise any other principle, I mean on a national scale, however much
we may progress."

"Oh, but we shan't prog