llick, good soul, would
shake her head and express her sympathy, in spite of not "holding" with
Mrs. Temperley's "ways."

Her poorer neighbours understood far more than the others could
understand, how sorely she was grieving about the child. Because she
said nothing on the subject, it was generally supposed that she had
ceased to care. After all, it was an act of charity that she had
undertaken, on an impulse, and it was quite as well that she should be
relieved of the responsibility.

Hannah used to write regularly, to let her know how Martha was.
Professor Theobald had directed Hannah to do this. The nurse had to
admit that he was very good and very devoted to the child. She throve in
her new home, and seemed perfectly happy.

Hadria was now delivered over to the tender mercies of her own thoughts.
Her memories burnt, as corrosive acids, in her brain. She could find no
shadow of protection from her own contempt. There was not one nook or
cranny into which that ruthless self-knowledge could not throw its cruel
glare. In the hours of darkness, in the haunted hours of the early
morning, she and her memories played horrible games with one another.
She was hunted, they the hunters. There was no thought on which she
could rest, no consoling remembrance. She often wished that she had
followed her frequent impulse to tell Miss Du Prel the whole wretched
story. But she could not force herself to touch the subject through the
painful medium of speech. Valeria knew that Hadria was capable of any
outward law-breaking, but she would never be prepared for the breaking
of her own inner law, the real canon on which she had always laid so
much stress. And then she had shrunk from the idea of betraying a secret
not solely her own. If she told the story, Valeria would certainly guess
the name. She felt a still greater longing that Professor Fortescue
should know the facts; he would be able to help her to face it all, and
to take the memory into her life and let its pain eat out what was base
and evil in her soul. He would give her hope; his experience, his
extraordinary sympathy, would enable him to understand it all, better
than she did herself. If he would look at this miserable episode
unflinchingly, and still hold out his hand to her, as she knew he would,
and still believe in her, then she might believe still in herself, in
her power of rising after this lost illusion, this shock of
self-detection, and of going on again, sadder