,
for both their sakes, manage the hateful operation without bungling.

What was the alternative? She seemed to ask it of Roger, as she stood
looking down upon him. Patience?--with a man who could never sympathize
with her intellectually or artistically?--the relations of married life
with a husband who made assignations with an old love, under the eyes of
the whole neighbourhood?--the narrowing, cramping influences of English
provincial society? No! she was born for other and greater things, and
she would grasp them. "My first duty is to myself--to my own
development. We have absolutely no _right_ to sacrifice ourselves--as
women have been taught to do for thousands of years."

Bewildered by the rhetoric of her own thoughts, Daphne returned to her
seat by the fire, and sat there wildly dreaming, till once more recalled
to practical possibilities by the passage of the hours on the clock
above her.

Miss Farmer? Everything, it seemed, depended on her. But Daphne had no
doubts of her. Poor girl!--with her poverty-stricken home, her drunken
father lately dismissed from his post, and her evident inclination
towards this clever young fellow now employed in the house--Daphne
rejoiced to think of what money could do, in this case at least; of the
reward that should be waiting for the girl's devotion when the moment
came; of the gifts already made, and the gratitude already evoked. No;
she could be trusted; she had every reason to be true.

Some fitful sleep came to her at last in the morning hours. But when
Roger awoke, she was half-way through her dressing; and when he first
saw her, he noticed nothing except that she was paler than usual, and
confessed to a broken night.

* * * * *

But as the day wore on it became plain to everybody at Heston--to Roger
first and foremost--that something was much amiss. Daphne would not
leave her sitting-room and her sofa; she complained of headache and
over-fatigue; would have nothing to say to the men at work on the new
decoration of the east wing of the house, who were clamouring for
directions; and would admit nobody but Miss Farmer and her maid. Roger
forced his way in once, only to be vanquished by the traditional weapons
of weakness, pallor, and silence. Her face contracted and quivered as
his step approached her; it was as though he trampled upon her; and he
left her, awkwardly, on tiptoe, feeling himself as intrusively brutal as
she clearly mean