iji^»«t4ais>^. 't i! '''*-, T* ■■^l-:'^ -•-,■?•'**' !f ■•■-'.-•■ V ■■*. T'*^- -.■,^- ^^■."-.•.'^.. - '"' W'AN W ill") lj[l) f^-""'?*- » i\ ^ ( \y, \'''. Wiv. Vl! r ::> i ' ij i>;.ii m' i .'»! I / ■M ) V h -y.' y //.. ^^\ ...w. //^'^'' 1^ ^■l^Bi ».#» a THE WOMAN WHO DID BY GRANT ALLHN BOSTON; LnTIJ., liROWN, & CO., 1S9S LONDON: JOHN LANE, VKiO ST 280217 V>\' Koiiiuri^ I'.Roi iiiKS. A U rii'iits reserved. John A\'ii.S(>\ and Son, Cami;iuih;i:, I'.S.A. ,, ^ ,■ „,. li-:lM«i&i«i5S TO MY DEAR WIFE TO WHOM I HAVK DRDICATED MV TWKNTV IIAVPIEST YEARS I DEDICATE ALSO THIS HRIEF MEMORIAL OF A LESS FORTUNATE LOVE "^■"""ppiiii WRITTEN AT rFRUCl^ SPRING 1893 FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE WHOLLY AND SOLELY TO SATISFY MY OWN TASTE AND MY OWN CONSCIENCE I I 1 * PREFACE. "But St, rely no woman would over dare to do SO, said my friend. " I K-new a woman who did,- said I;. -and this IS her story." ft ^■1 I ,> 4 « «. "w J I THE WOMAN WHO DID. I J I. Mrs. Dewsburv's lawn was held by those who knew it the loveliest in Surrey. The smooth and springy sward that stretched in iront of the house was all composed of a tiny yellow clover. It gave l)eneath the foot like the p,le on velvet. One's g. ,e looked forth trom It upon the endless middle distances of the oak-clad Weald, with the uncertain blue inc of the South Downs in the background Kidge behind ridge, the long, low hills of palu- (lina limestone stood out in successive tiers each thrown up against its neighbor by the misty haze that broods eternally over the vyoodcd valley; till, roaming across them all tlie eye rested at last on the rearing scarp of Chanctonbury Ring, faintly pencilled on the furthest sky-line. Shadowy phantoms of dim h.nghts framed the verge to east and west. Alan Merrick drank it in with profound satis- faction. After those sharp and clear-cut Itali m mmmm mmumtimmmmit 8 THE WOMAN WHO DH). outlines, hard as lapis lazul', the mysterious vagueness, the pregnant suggestiveness, of our English scenery strikes the imagination; and Alan was fresh home from an early summer tour among the Peruginesc[ue solidities of liie Umbrian Apennines. " How beautiful it all is, after all," he said, turning to his entertainer. "In Italy 't is the background the painter dwells upon; in I^Jigland, we look rather at the middle distance." Mrs. Dewsbury darted round her the restless eye of a hostess, to see upon whom she could socially bestow him. ** Oh, come this way," she said, sweeping across the lawn towards a girl in a blue dress at the o})posite corner. "You must know our new-comer. I want to introduce you to Miss Barton, from Cambridge. She 's siii/i a nice girl too, — the Dean of Dunwich's daughter." Alan Merrick drew back with a vague ges- ture of distaste. "Oh, thank you," he re})lied; "but, do you know, I don't think I like deans, Mrs. Dewsbury." Mrs. Dewsbury 's smile was recondite and diplomatic. "Then you '11 exactly suit one an- other," she answered with gay wisdom. " l^V)r, to tell you the truth, I don't think s/ic does either." Th young man allowed himself to be led with a passive protest in the direction where »»WWTO»SWIiWnWflllW*WB^( THE WOMAN WHO DH). I \ # Mrs. Dcwsbury so impulsively hurried him, lie heard that cultivated voice murmuriiif; in the usual inaudible tone of introduction, "IVIiss Barton, Mr. Alan Merrick." Then he raised his hat. As he did so, he looked down at Ilerminia Barton's face with a sudden start of surprise. Why, this was a <;irl of most unusual beauty ! She was tall and dark, with abundant black hair, richly waved above the ample forehead.; and she wore a curious (3riental-looking navy- blue robe of some soft woollen stuff, that fell in natural folds and set off to the utmost the lissome grace of her rounded figure. It was a sort of sleeveless sack, eml^roidered in front with arabesques in gold thread, and fastened obliquely two inches below the waist with a belt of gilt braid, and a clasp of Moorish jewel- work, l^eneath it, a bodice of darker silk showed at the arms and neck, with loose sleeves in keeping. The whole costume, though quite simple in style, a compromise cither for after- noon or evening, was charming in its novelty, charming too in the way it permitted the utmost liberty and variety of movement to the lithe limbs of its wearer. P)Ut it was her face par- ticularly that struck y\lan Merrick at first sight. That face was above all things the face of a free woman. Something!; so frank and fearless shone mm ■UMMtiiMatK lO THE WOMAN WHO DID. in Hcrminia's glance, as her eye met his, that Alan, who respected human freedom above all other qualities in man or woman, was taken on the spot by its- perfect air of untrammelled liberty. Yet it was subtle and beautiful too, undeniably beautiful. Ilerminia liarton's fea- tures, I think, were even more striking in their way in later life, when sorrow had stamped her, and the mark of her willing martyrdom for humanity's sake was deeply printed upon them. But their beauty then was the beauty of holiness, which not all can a}:)preciate. In her younger days, as Alan Merrick first saw her, she was beautiful still with the first flush of health and strcniith and womanhood in a free and vigorous English girl's body. A certain lofty serenity, not untouched with pathos, seemed to strike the keynote. ]5ut that was not all. Some hint of every element in the highest loveliness met in that face and form, — physical, intellectual, emotional, moral. " You '11 like him, Herminia, " Mrs. Dewsbury said, nodding, ** He 's one of your own kind, as dreadful as you are; very free and advanced; a perfect firebrand. In fact, my dear child, I don't know wliich of you makes my hair stand on end most." And with that introductory hint, she left the pair forthwith to their own devices. '4 ^Si^WPWP^' •'fy^y'^i^^'^.'M'^ THE WOMAN WHO DID. II Mrs. Dcwsbury was ri^i;-ht. It took those two but little time to feel cjuite at home with one another. Built of similar mouUl, each seemed instinctively to grasp what each was aimini; at. Two or three turns pacing up ami down the lawn, two or three stei)s along the box-covered path at the side, and they read one another per- fectly. For he was true man, and she was real woman. "Then you were at Girton?" Alan asked, as he paused with one hand on the rustic seat that looks up towards Leith Hill, and the heather- clad moorland. ** Yes, at Girton," Ilerminia answered, sink- ing easily upon the bench, and letting one arm rest on the back in a graceful attitude of unstudied attention. ''But I ditln't take my Icfrree, sh e went on hurriec lly as one who is anxious to disclaim some too irreat honor thrust upon her. I did n't care for the life; I thouirht it cramping. You see, if wc women are ever to be free in the world, we must have in the end a freeman's education. lUit the education at Girton made only a pretence at freedom. At heart, our girls were as enslaved to conventions as any girls elsewhere. The wdiole object of the training was to see just how far you could manage to push a woman's education without the faintest danger of her emancipation." ■MMMMiUMirii 12 THE WOMAN WHO DID. "You arc right," Alan answered briskly, for the point was a pet one with him. " I was an Oxford man myself, and I know that servitude. When I go up to Oxford now and see the girls who are being ground in the r;ill at Somer- ville, I 'm heartily sorry for them. It 's worse for them than for us; they miss the only part of university lite that has educational value. When we men were undeii'iaduates, we lived our whole lives, — lived them all round, devel- oping equally every fibre of our natures. Wc read Tlato, and Aristotle, and John Stuart Mill, to be sure, — and I 'm not quite certain we got much good from them ; but then our talk and thought were not all of books, and of what we spelt out in them. We rowed on the river, we played in the cricket-field, we lounged in the billiard-rooms, we ran up to town for the day, we had wine in one another's rooms after hall in the evening, and behaved like young fools, and threw oranges wildly at one another's heads, and generally enjoyed ourselves. It was all very silly and irrational, no doubt, but it was life, it was reality; while the pretended earnestness of those pallid Somerville girls is all an affectation of one-sided cidture. " "That 's just it," Herminia answered, leaning back on the rustic seat like David's Madame R(^^camier. "You put your finger on the real im i*^r ^*i»:j( r.cwrsr^ gnoivnmu ■«>»"• ' i-.uwwimmiiji THE WOMAN WHO DID. 13 blot when you said those words, developing equally every fibre of your natures. That 's what nobody yet wants us women to do. They 're trying hard enouL;h to develop us intellectually; but morally and socially they want to mew us up just as close as ever. And they won't succeed. The zenana must f;o. Sooner or later, I 'm sure, if you bei^in by edu- cating women, you must end by emancipating them." "So I think too," Alan answered, growing every moment more interested. " And for my part, it 's the emancipation, not the mere edu- cation, that most appeals to me. " "Yes, I 've always felt that," Herminia went on, letting herself out more freely, for she felt she was face to face with a sympathetic listener. " And for that reason, it 's the question of social and moral emancipation that interests me far more than the mere political one, — woman's rights as they call it. Of course I 'm a mem- ber of all the woman's franchise leagues and everything of that sort, — they can't afford to do without a single friend's name on their lists at present ; but the vote is a matter that troubles me little in itself, what I want is to see women made fit to use it. After all, political life fills but a small and unimportant part in our total existence. It 's the perpetual pressure of social ^ttkitjlitiimmimim micn n 14 THE WOMAN WHO DID. and ethical restrictions that most weighs clown women. " Alan paused and looked hard at her. " And they tell me," he said in a slow voice, "you 're the Dean of Dunwich's daughter!" Herminia laughed lightly, — a ringing girlish laugh. Alan noHced it with pleasure. He felt at once that the iron of Girton had not entered into her soul, as into so many of our modern young women's. There was vitality enough left in her for a genuine laugh of innocent amuse- ment. "Oh yes," she said, merrily; "that's what I always answer to all possible objectors to my ways and ideas. I reply with dignity, ' /was brought up in the family of a clergyman of the Church of England. ' " " And what does the Dean say to your views?" Alan interposed doubtfully. Herminia laughed again. If her eyes were profound, two dimples saved her. " I thought you were with us," she answered with a twinkle; "now, I begin to doubt it. You don't expect a man of twenty-two to be governed in all things, esi)ecially in the formation of his abstract ideas, by his father's opinions. Why then a woman } " " Why, indeed ? " Alan answered. " There I quite agree with you. I was thinking not so much of what is right and reasonable as of what i i # W*iatwf9 THE WOMAN WHO DID. 15 is practical and usual. For most women, of course, arc — well, more or less elopendent upon their fathers." "But I am not," Ilerminia answered, with a faint suspicion of just i)ride in the undercur- rent of her tone. "That 's in ])art why I wen', away so soon from Girton. I felt that if women are ever to be free, they must first of all he independent. It is the dependence of women that has allowed men to make laws for them, socially and ethically. So I would n't stop at Girton, partly because I felt the life was one- sided, — our girls thought and talked of nothing else on earth except Herodotus, trigonometry, and the higher culture, — but partly also be- cause I wouldn't be dependent on any man, not even my own father. It left me freer to act and think as I would. So I threw Girton overboard, and came up to live in London." "I see," Alan replied. "You wouldn't let your schooling interfere with your education. And now you support yourself.-*" he went on quite frankly. Herminia nodded assent. "Yes, I support myself," she answered; "in part by teaching at a high school for girls, and in part by doing a little hack-work for news- papers." "Then you 're just down here for your holi- i6 THE WOMAN WHO DID. days, I suppose?" Alan put in, leaning for- ward. "Yes, just down here for my holidays. I 'vc lodgings on the Holmwood, in such a dear old thatched cottage ; roses peep in at the porch, and birds sing on the bushes. After a term in London, it 's a delicious change for one." "But are you alone?" Alan interposed again, still half hesitating. Herminia smiled once more; his surprise amused her. " Yes, quite alone," she answered. "Hut if you seem so astonished at that, I shall believe you and Mrs. Uewsbury have been try- ing to take me in, and that you 're not really with us. Why shouldn't a woman come down alone to pretty lodgings in the country ? " "Why not, indeed?" Alan echoed in turn. "It's not at all that I disapprove, Miss 15ar- ton; on the contrary, I admire it; it 's only that one 's surprised to find a woman, or for the matter of that anybody, acting up to his or her convictions. That's what I 've always felt; 't is the Nemesis of reason ; if people begin by thinking rationally, the danger is that they may end by acting rationally also." Herminia laughed. "I'm afraid," she an- swered, "I've already reached that pass. You '11 never find me hesitate to do anything on earth, once I 'm convinced it 's right, merely «MM«1 i THE WOMAN WHO DID. 17 because other people think differently on the subject." Alan looked at her and mused. She was tall and stately, but her fiL;ure was well develoi)ed, and her form softly moulded. He admired her immensely. How incongruous an outcome from a clerical family! *' It 's curious," he said, gaz- ing hard at her, **that you should be a dean's daughter." "On the contrary," Herminia answered, with perfect frankness, '* I regard myself as a living proof of the doctrine of heredity." "Howso.^" Alan inquired, "Well, my father was a Senior Wrangler," Herminia replied, blushing faintly; "and I sup- pose that implies a certain moderate develop- ment of the logical faculties. In Jiis generation, people didn't apply the logical faculties to the grounds of belief; they took those for granted; but vv thin his own limits, my father is still an acute reasoner. And then he had always the ethical and social interests. Those two things — a love of logic, and a love of right — arc the forces that tend to make us what we call religious. Worldly people don't care for fun- damental questions of the universe at all, they accept passively whatever is told them ; they think they think, and believe they believe it. But people with an interest in fundamental z i8 THE WOMAN WHO DID. r truth inquire for themselves into the constitu- tion of the cosmos; if they are convinced one way, they become what we call theologians; if they are convinced the other way, they become what we call free-thinkers. Interest in the problem is common to both; it's the nature of the solution alone that differs in the two cases." "That's quite true," Alan assented. "And have you ever noticed this curious corollary, that you and I can talk far more sympathetically with an earnest Catholic, for example, or an earnest Evangelical, than we can talk with a mere ordinary worldly person." "Oh dear, yes," Herminia answered with conviction. "Thought will always sympathize with thought. It 's the unthinking mass one can get no further with. " Alan changed the subject abruptly. This girl so interested him. She was the girl he had imagined, the girl ^'^ nad dreamt of, the girl he had thought possible, but never yet met with. "And you're in lodgings on the Holm- wood here.-* " he said, musing. " For how much longer.^" "For six weeks, I 'm glad to say," Herminia answered, rising. " At what cottage ? " "Mrs. Burke's, — not far from the station." <"^«'>.»«..^,-i^'fl THE WOMAN WJiq nri). '9 "May I come to sec you there?" Hcrminia's elear brown eves r^ze.l I ^t J^^ni, all puzzlement " Wh " , ''^'''" answered- "J sh.ll i , ,- ^^' surely," she y Liiini^^s, she went on- 'Snr? ,> • to find a man whn ^ ^ ^^ ^^^^ '''."- lon.C :; ir J"''-^'- vviU, the "J" tlic morning, after brcakfist tu . ■ at eight o'clock," Hcrmini. ''^'^' -'^at ,s, ''oHater, after h,ni;^v;rtr''r '■■'"- " Six weeks " \ I thereabouts. " than to h'r ' Th ' ^ "'""'"'; ""^'-' ^" '''■--'f Not a moment the ' "''' """ i'^---"^- I think •• h "' """"' '''^ '«st. "Then Ijh,„k.^^hcwentonc,uietly,"l,hancanto n.ini;.:ii;tr'^ '^'"■'-^'^ ^-^'^ -- j^- answered „oTi;inl T" "" "'"^'-" '"^- '^« ^i^'-' soul should em in sr\^'''' "^''^ '^'""■■>-'d acquaintance "'' ' '^"'■''y '" ^-"'-'w her »> 20 THE WOMAN WHO HID. II. Next afternoon, about t'vo o'clock, Alan called with a tremulous heart at the cottage. Iler- minia had heard not a little of hir.i meanwhile from her friend Mrs. Dewsbury. "He's a charming young man, my dear," the woman of the w )rld observv^d with confidence. "I felt quite sure you 'd attract one another. He 's so clever and advanced, and everything that 's dreadful, — just like yourself, Ilerminia. lUit then he 's also very well connected. That 's always something, especially when one 's an oddity. You would n't go down one bit your- self, dear, if you were n't a dean's daughter. The shadow of a cathedral steeple covers a mul- titutle of sins. Mr. Merrick 's the son of the famous London gout doctor, — you must know his name, — all the roval dukes flock to him. He's a barrister himself, and in excellent prac- tice. You might (h) worse, do you know, than to go in for ^Man Meirick. " Herminia's lip curleil an almost imj^ercep- tible curl as she answered gravely, " I tlon't ''«E*t(«^,t,»jS5*''1| i THE WOMAN- WHO DID. ^I thi,,k you cuitc „n.lersta,nl my p,,,,^ ,, ,,-^. to ,,^. .Wo. anybody ''''^'''"■^"'' ''"-"'■- li"t Mrs. Dcn..sb„ry shook her head '^l, knew the world .she lived i„. "A, v-,,^''; a great many ^irls talk- in-. ,i ' ''''"■'' •si- answereiat ce with , "^^'V'-f'"-^'''--'^!." "but when the r iu '""^ ^"'^'-fy KHb„ess; lieu uie uir|,t p,^ turned iit> H, .„ foi-Sot their protestations U ^^ """" difference dear >vl, "'■''"■'■' ''^ '"' "f >.(-'-, deal, when a man real'y asks yon ' " Herminia bent her he-i.l "V V '" ' ■stand me, -she replied •' don >"" """"'•'^"■ I will never fall in love I ;"'"' '" '^^'^ V'-'^ ^™> to it tanki;, !!riV: ::- '^^^^^^^ P ace in life. I only me n to " 7'T ^ thmk anything will ever induce me n' "' tliat is to s.ay, legally.- "' '° '"•''"■>••- Mrs. Dewsbmy '-"'''"--ti.c end VVI..n Alan arrived, Herminia sat at the win. ':^^Jfi■^ftf,^?,Jrmfftim^ift<'i'Miff0 r'«Mil>awr<«K,,#^ 22 THE WOMAN WHO DID. dow by the quaintly clipped box-tree, a volume of verse held half closed in her hand, thor.ij;h she was a great deal too honest and transparent to pretend she was reading it. She expected Alan to call, in accordance with his promise, for she had seen at Mrs. Dewsbury's how great an impression she produced upon him; and, having taught herself that it was every true woman's duty to avoid the affectations and self- deceptions which the rule of man has begotten in women, she did n't try to conceal from her- self the fact chat she on her side was by no means without interest in the question how soon he would pay her his promised visit. As he appeared at the rustic gate in the privet hedge, Herminia looked out, and changed color with pleasure when she saw him push it open. " Oh, how nice of you to look me up so soon ! " she cried, jumping from her seat (with just a glance at the glass) and strolling out bare- headed into the cottage garden. "Is n't this a charming place .^ Only look at our hollyhocks! Consider what an oasis after six months of London ! " She seemed even prettier than last night, in her simple white morning dress, a mere ordi- nary luiglish gown, without affectation of any sort, yet touched with some faint reminiscence of a flowing Greek chiton. Its half-classical t \ I I THE WOMAN WHO DID. 23 drapery exactly suited the severe rei^ularity of her i)ensive features and her L;raecful fi<^ure Alan thoug-ht as he looked at her he had never before seen anybody who appeared at all points so nearly to approach his ideal of womanhood. She was at once so hi^h in type, so serene, so tranquil, and yet so purely womanly. "Yes, it is a lovely place," he answered, looking around at the clematis that drooped from the gable-ends. ''I'm staying myself with the Watertons at the Park, but I \\ rather have this pretty little rose-bowered garden than all their balustrades and Italian terraces. The cottagers have chosen the better part. What gillyflowers and what columbines! And here you look out so directly on the common. I love the gorse and the bracken, I love the stagnant pond, I love the very geese that tug hard at the silverweed, they make it all seem so deliciously English." "Shall we walk to the ridge .>" Herminia asked with a sudden burst of suggestion. " It 's too rare a day to waste a minute of it indoors I was waiting till you came. We can talk all the freer for the fresh air on the hill-top." Nothing could have suited Alan Merrick better, and he said so at once. Herminia dis- appeared for a moment to get her hat. Man observed almost without observing it that she ':'-'•> '§^,)ftnfU^¥9<''>:^:-^» El I i 24 THE WOMAN WHO DID. I i was gone but for a second. She asked none of that h:)ng interval that most women require for the simplest matter of toilet. She was back again almost instantly, bright and fresh and smiling, in the most modest of hats, set so art- lessly on her head that it became her better than all art could have made it. Then they started for a long stroll across the breezy com- mon, yellow in places with upright spikes of small summer furze, and pink with wild pea- blossom. Bees buzzed, broom crackled, the chirp of the field-cricket rang shrill from the sand-banks. Herminia's light foot tripped over the spongy turf. By the top of the furthest ridge, looking down on North Holmwood church, they sat side by side for a while on the close short grass, brocaded with daisies, and gazed across at the cropped sward of Denbies and the long line of the North Downs stretching away towards Reigate. Tender grays and greens melted into one another on the larches hard by; Betchworth chalk-pit gleamed dreamy white in the middle distance. They had been talking earnestly all the way, like two old friends together; for they were both of them young, and they felt at once that nameless bond which often draws one closer to a new acquaintance at first sight than years of converse. " How seriously you look at life," Alan cried at last, THE WOMAN WHO DID. 25 in answer to one of Ilcrminia's .c:raver thoughts. "I wonder what makes you take it so niueh more earnestly than all other women?" "It came to me all at once when I was about sixteen," Herminia answered with quiet com- posure, like one who remarks upon some objec- tive fact of exernal nature. " It came to me in listening to a sermon of my father's, — which I always look upon as one more instance of the force of heredity. He was preaching on the text, ' The Truth shall uiake you Free,' and all that he said about it seemed to me strangely alive, to be heard from a pulpit. He said we ought to seek the Truth before all things, and never to rest till we felt sure we had found it. We should not suffer our souls to be beguiled into believing a falsehood merely because we wouldn't take the trouble to find out the Truth for ourselves by searching. We must dig for it; we must grope after it. And as bespoke, I made up my mind, in a flash of resolution! to find out the Truth for myself about every- thing, and never to be deterred from seeking it, and embracing it, and ensuing it when found,' by any convention or preconception. Then he went on to say how the Truth would make us Free, and I felt he was right. It would open our eyes, and emancipate us from social and moral slaveries. So I made up my mind, at the if 26 THE WOMAN WIU) DID. same time, that wlicncvcr I found the Truth I would not scrujilc to follow it to its lo>^ical conclusions, but would practise it in my life, and let it make me Free with perfect freedom. Then, in search of Truth, I got my father to send me to Girton; and when I had lighted on it there half by accident, and it had made x/.e Free indeed, I went away from Girton again, because I saw if I stopped there I could never achieve and guard my freedom. From that day forth I have aimed at nothing but to know the Truth, and to act upon it freely; for, as Tennyson says, — ' To live by law Acting the law we live by without fear, And because right is right to follow right, Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.' '* I i She broke off suddenly, and looking up, let her eye rest for a second on the dark thread of clambering pines that crest the down just above Brockham. "This is dreadfully egotistical," she cried, with a sharp little start. " I ought to apologize for talking so much to you about my own feelings." Alan gazed at her and smiled. "Why apol- ogize," he asked, "for managing to be interest- ing.^ You arc not egotistical at all. What you are telling me is history, — the history of a soul, 11 \ THE WOMAN WHO DID. 27 which is always the one thin^i; on earth wo'-th hearing. I take it as a compliment that you should hold me worthy to hear it. It is a proof of confidence. Besides," he went on, after a second's pause, " I am a man ; you are a woman. Under those circumstances, what would other- wise be egotism becomes common and mutual. When two people sympathize with one another, all they can say about themselves loses its [)er- sonal tinge and merges into pure human and abstract interest. " Herminia brought back her eyes from infinity to his face.. "That's true," she said frankly. "The magic link of sex that severs and unites us makes all the difference. And, indeed, I confess I would n't so have spoken of my inmost feelings to another woman." r 28 THE WOMAN WHU DID. III. 4 From that day forth, Alan and Ilerminia met frequently. Alan was given to sketching, and he sketched a great deal in his idle times on the common. He translated the cottages from real estate into poetry. On such occasions, Herminia's walks often led her in the same direction. For Herminia was frank; she liked the young man, and, the truth having made her free, she knew no reason why she should avoid or pretend to avoid his company. She had no fear of that sordid impersonal goddess who rules Thilistia; it mattered not to her what "people said," or whether or not they said any- thing about her. "Aiunt: quid aiunt.? aiant," was her motto. Could she have known to 'a certainty that her meetings on the common with Alan Merrick had excited unfavorable comment among the old ladies of Holm wood, the point would have seemed to her ui. worthy of an emancipated soul's consideration. She could estimate at its true worth the value of all human criticism upon human action. f THE WOMAN WIID Dm. 29 So, (lay after day, she met Alan Merrick, half by accident, half by desi-n, on the slopes of the Holm wood. They talked much to<;ether, for Alan liked her and understood her. His heart went out to her. Comjxact of like clay, he knew the meaning of her hopes and aspira- tions. Often as he sketched he would look up and wait, expecting to catch the faint sound of her light step, or see her lithe figure poised breezy against the sky on the neighboring ridges. Whenever she drew near, his pulse thrilled at her coming, —a somewhat unusual experience with Alan Merrick. I^\,r Alan, though a pure soul in his way, and mixed of the finer paste, was not quite like those best of men, who are, so to speak, born married. A man with an innate genius for loving and being loved cannot long remain single.^ He must marry young; or at least, if he docs not marry, he must find a comi)ani()n, a woman to his heart, a help that is meet for him. What is commonly called prudence in such concerns is only another name for vice and cruelty. The purest and best of men necessarily mate them- selves before they are twenty. As a rule, it is the selfish, the mean, the calculating, vvho wait, as they say, "till they can afford to marry." That vile phrase scarcely veils hidden depths of depravity. A man who is really a ( 30 THE WOMAN WHO DID. man, and who has a ijjcnius for lovincj, must love from the very first, and must feci himself surrounded by tliose who love him. 'T is the first necessity of life to him; bread, meat, rai- ment, a house, an income, rank far second to that prime want in the ^ood man's economy. But Alan IMerrick, though an excellent fellow in his way, and of noble fibre, was not quite one of the first, the picked souls of humanity. Me did not count among the finger-posts who point the way that mankind will travel. Though Herminia always thought him so. That was her true woman's gift of the highest idealizing power. Indeed, it adds, to my mind, to the tragedy of Herminia Barton's life that the man for whom she risked and lost everything was never quite worthy of her; and that Herminia to the end not once suspected it. Alan was over thirty, and was still "looking about him." That alone, you will admit, is a sufficiently grave condemnation. That a man should have arrived at the ripe age of thirty and not yet have lighted upon the elect lady — the woman with- out whose companionship life would be to him unendurable is in itself a strong proof of much underlying selfishness, or, what comes to the same thing, of a calculating disposition. The right sort of man does n't argue with himself at all on these matters. He doesn't say with ^ THE WOMAN WHO Din. 31 selfish coldness, "I can't afford a wife;" or, "If I marry now, I shall ruin my j^rospects." He feels and acts. He mates, like the birds, because he can't help himself. A woman crosses his path who is to him indispensable, a part of himself, the needful complement of his own per- sonality ; and without heed or hesitation he takes her to himself, lawfully or unlawfully, because he has need of her. That is how nature has made us; that is how every man worthy of the name of man has always felt, and thought, and acted. The worst of all possible and conceivable checks upon population is the vile one which Malthus glossed over as "the prudential," and which con- sists in substituting prostitution for marriage through the spring-tide of one's manhood. Alan Merrick, however, was over thirty and still unmarried. More than that, he was heart- free, — a very evil record. And, like most other unmarried men of thirty, he was a trifle fas- tidious. He was "looking about him." That means to say, he was waiting to find some woman who suited him. No man does so at twenty. He sees and loves. ]^ut Alan Mer- rick, having let slip the golden moment when nature prompts every growing youth to fling himself with pure devotion at the feet of the first good angel who happens to cross his path and attract his worship, had now outlived the 32 THE WOMAN WHO DID. ti i early flush of pure passion, and was thinking only ot " coniforlably scttliui; himself." In one word, when a man is vounLC, he asks himself 'ft>> with a thrill what he can do to make hapjiy this sweet soul he loves; when he has let that critical moment flow by him unseized, he asks only, in cold blood, what woman will most agreeably make life run smooth for him. The first stage is pure love; the second, pure selfishness. Still, Alan Merrick was now "getting on in his profession," and, as people said, it was high time he should be settled. They said it as they might have said it was high time he should take a business partner. From that lowest depth of emotional disgrace Hcrminia Barton was to preserve him. It was her task in life, though she knew it not to save Alan Merrick's soul. And nobly she s^ved it. Alan, "looking about him," wdth some fine qualities of nature underlying in the back- ground that mean social philosophy of the class from which he sprang, fell frankly in love almost at first sight with Herminia. He ad- mired and respected her. More than that, he understood her. She had power in her purity to raise his nature for a time to something approaching her own high level. True woman has the real Midas cfift: all that she touches THK WOMAN WHO DH) 33 turns to purest -old. Secin- Ilerminia much and talking with her, Alan could not tail to be impressed with the idea that here was a soul which could do a great deal more for him than "make him comfortable," — which could raise him to moral heights he had hardly yet dreamt of,— which could wake in him the best of which he was capable. And watching her thus, he soon fell in love with her, as few men of thirty are able to fall in love for the first time, —as the young man falls in love, with the unselfish energy of an unspoilt nature. He asked no longer whether Ilerminia was the sort of girl who could make him comfortable; he askeu only, with that delicious tremor of self-distrust which belongs to mrive youth, whether he dare offer himself to one so pure and good and beautiful. And his hesitation was justified- for our sordid England has not brought forth many such serene and single-minded ^ souls as Herminia Barton. At last one afternoon they had climbed together the steep red face of the sandy slope that rises abruptly from the Ilolmwood towards Lcith Hill, by the Robin Gate entrance. Near the top, they had seated themselves on a carpet of sheep-sorrel, looking out across the impertur- bable expanse of the Weald, and the broad pas- tures of Sussex. A solemn blue haze brooded 34 THE WOMAN WHO DID. .1 14 soft over the land. The sun was sinkiiiG^ low; ol:)lique afternoon lii^hts flooded the distant South Downs. Their con.bes came out aslant in saucer-shajied shadows. Alan turned and gazed at Ilerminia; she was hot with clinibini;, and her calm face was flushed. A town-bred girl would have looked red and blows3/"; but the color and the exertion just suited Herminia. On that healthy brown cheek it seemed natural to discern the visible marks of effort. Alan gazed at her with a sudden rush of untram- melled feelinii. The elusive outline of her grave sweet face, the wistful eyes, the ripe red mouth enticed him. ''Oh, Ilerminia," he cried, calling her for the first time by her Christian name alone, " how glad I am I happened to go that afternoon to Mrs. Dewsbury's. For other- wise perhaps I might never have known you." Ilerminia's heart gave a delicious bound. She was a woman, and therefore she was glad he should speak so. She was a woman, and therefore she shrank from acknowledging it. But she looked him back in the face tranquilly, none the less on that account, and answered with sweet candor, "Thank you so much, Mr. Merrick." " /said * Ilerminia, ' " the young man corrected, smiling, yet aghast at his own audacity. "And I thciuked you for it," Ilerminia an- THE WOMAN WHO DID. 35 swcrcd, casting down those dark lashes, and feeling the heart throb violently under her neat bodice. Alan drew a deep breath. "And it was that you thanked me for," he ejaculated, tin'^lin'r. "Yes, it was that I thanked you for," Hor- minia answered, with a still deei)er rose si)read- ing down to her bare throat. "1 like you very much, and it pleases me to hear you call me Herminia. Why should I shrink from admit- ting it.? "r is the Truth, you know; antl the Truth shall make us Free. I 'm not afraid of my freedom." Alan paused for a second, irresolute. "Her- minia," he said at last, leaning forward till his face was very close to hers, and he could feel the warm breath that came a»id went so quickly; "that 's very, very kind of you. I need n't tell you I 've been thinking a great deal about you these last three weeks or so. You have filled my mind; filled it to the brim, and I think you know it." Philosopher as she was, Herminia plucked a blade of grass, and drew it quivering through her tremulous fingers. It caught and hesitatc^d. "I guessed as much, I think," she answered, low but frankly. The young man's heart gave a bound. "And you, Herminia.? " he asked, in an eager ecstasy. 36 THE WOMAN WHO DID. Hcrminia was true to the Truth. "I've thought a great deal about you too, Mr. Mer- rick," she answered, looking down, but with a great gladness thrilling her. " I said * Herminia, ' " the young man repeated, with a marked stress on the Christian name. Herminia hesitated a second. Then two crimson spots flared forth on her speaking face, as she answered with an effort, " About you too, Alan." The young man drew back and gazed at her. She was very, very beautiful. "Dare I ask you, Herminia?" he cried. "Have I a right to ask you .'' Am I worthy of you, I mean ? Ought I to retire as not your peer, and leave you to some man who could rise more easily to the height of your dignity.?" "I've thought about that too," Herminia answered, still firm to her principles. " I 've thought it all over. I *ve said to myself. Shall I do right in monopolizing him, when he is so great, and sweet, and true, and generous.^ Not monopolizing, of course, for that would be wrong and selfish; but making you my own more than any otiier woman's. And I answered my own heart, Yes, yes, I shall do right to accept him, if he asks me; for I love him, that is enough. The thrill within me tells me so. Nature put that thrill in our souls to cry out to us with a THE WOMAN WHO DID. 17 clear voice when we had met the soul she then and there intended for us." Alan's face flushed like her own. "Then you love me," he cried, all on fire. "And you dei-n to tell me so; Oh, Herminia, how sweet you are. What have I done to deserve it } " He folded her in his arms. Her bosom throbbed on his. Their lips met for a second Hermmia took his kiss with sweet submission and made no faint pretence of fi-htin- a-ainst It. Her heart was full. She quickened to the finr^^er-tips. There was silence for a minute or two, —the silence when soul speaks direct to soul throu-h the vehicle of touch, the mother-tongue of the affections. Then Alan leaned back once more and hanging over her in a rapture murmured in soft low tones, 'So Herminia, you will be mme! You say beforehand you will take me." "Not ivill be yours," Herminia corrected in that silvery voice of hers. " Am yours already Alan. I somehow feel as if I had always been yours. I am yours this moment. You may do what you would with me." She said it so simi)]y, so purely, so naturally with all the supreme faith of the good woman enamoured, who can yield herself up without blame to the man who loves her, that it hardly even occurred to Alan's mind to wonder at her 38 THE WOMAN WHO DID. sclf-surrcndcr. Yet he drew back all the same in a sudden little crisis of doubt and uncer- tainty. He scarcely realized what she meant. "Then, dearest," he cried tentatively, "how soon may we be married ? " At sound of those unexpected words from such lips as his, a flush of shame and horror overspread Herminia's cheek. "Never!" she cried firmly, drawing away. " Oh, Alan, what can you mean by it.^ Don't tell me, after all I 've tried to make you feel and understand, you thought I could possibly consent to marry you.?" The man gazed at her in surprise. Though he was prepared for much, he was scarcely pre- pared for such devotion to principle. "Oh, Herminia," he cried, "you can't mean it. You can't have thought of what it entails. Surely, surely, you won't carry your ideas of freedom to such an extreme, such a dangerous conclu- sion ! " Herminia looked up at him, half hurt. "Can't have thought of what it entails!" she repeated. Her dimples deepened. "Why, Alan, haven't I had my whole lifetime to think of it.** What else have I thought about in any serious way, save this one great question of a woman's duty to herself, and her sex, and her unborn children.? It's been my sole study. i\\ THE WOMAN WHO DIP. 39 How could you fancy I spoke hastily, or with. out due consideration on such a subject? Would you have me like the blind girls who go unknowing to the altar, as sheep go to the shambles? Could you suspect me of such care- lessness ? — such culpable thoughtlessness ? — you, to whom I have spoken of all this so freely ? " Alan stared at her, disconcerted, hardly knowing how to answer. *' But what alterna- tive do you propose, then?" he asked in his amazement. "Propose?" rierminia repeated, taken aback in her turn. It all seemed to her so plain, and transparent, and natural. ''Why, simply that we should be friends, like any othei3, very dear, dear friends, with the only kind of friendship that nature makes possible between men and women. " She said it so softly, with some womanly gentleness, yet with such lofty candor, that Alan couldn't help admiring her more than ever before for her translucent simplicity, and directness of purpose. Yet her suggestion frightened him. It was so much more novel to him than to her. Herminia had reasoned It all out with herself, as she truly said, for years, and knew exactly how she felt and thought about it. To Alan, on the contrary, I 40 THE WOMAN WHO DID. i ^ I; i it came with the shock of a sudden surprise, and he could hardly tell on the spur of the moment how to deal with it. He paused and reflected. "lUitdo you mean to say, lierminia," he asked, still holdin<^ that soft brown hand unresisted in his, "you've made up your mind never to marry any one.'' made up your mind to brave the whole mad world, that can't possibly understand the motives of your conduct, and live with some friend, as you put it, unmarried.'' " "Yes, I've made up my mind," Herminia answered, with a faint tremor in her maidenly voice, but with hardly a trace now of a trait- orous blush, where no blush was needed. " I 've made up my mind, Alan; and from all we had said and talked over together, I thought you at least would sympathize in my resolve." She spoke .vith a gentle tinge of regret, nay almost of disillusion. The bare suggestion of that regret stung Alan to the quick. He felt it was shame to him that he could not rise at once to the height of her splendid self-renuncia- tion. " You mistake me, dearest," he answered, petting her hand in his own (and she allowed him to pet it). "It was n't for myself, or for the world I hesitated. My thought was for you. You are very young yet. You say you have counted the cost. I wonder if you have. I wonder if you realize it." TIIF WOMAN WHO DID. 41 "Only too well," Herminia replied, in a very earnest mood. "I have wroui^ht it all out in my mind beforehand, —covenanted with my soul that for women's sake I would be a free woman. Alan, whoever would be free must himself strike the blow. I know what you will say, -—what every man would say to the woman he loved under similar circumstances, — 'Why should you be the victim? Why should j/^;/ be the mr-y,-? ]}^^^|^ j,^ ^|^^, ^^^^^ yourself; leave this d om to some other. ' lUit, Alan, I can't. I feel / must face it. Unless one woman begins, there will be no bci^in- ning." She lifted his hand in her own, and fondled it in her turn with caressin.i; tender- ness. "Think how easy it would be for me, dear friend," she cried, with a catch in her voice, "to do as other women do; to accept the liotl omblc marriaac you offer me, as other women would call it; to be false to my sex, a traitor to my convictions; to sell my kind for a mess of pottage, a name and a home, or even for thirty pieces of silver, to be some rich man's wife, as other women have sold it. ]Uit, Alan, I can't. My conscience won't let me. I knovv what marriage is. from what vile slavery it has sprung; on what unseen horrors for my sister women it is reared and buttressed; by what unholy sacrifices it is sustained, and made pos- 42 Tin: WOMAN WHO did. ; '1 ; ■ i s\h\Q. I know it has a history. I know its past, I know its present, and I can't em])race it; I can't be untrue to my most sacred beliefs. I can't pander to the mali^^nant thing, just because a man who loves me would be pleased by my giving way and would kiss mc, and fondle mc for it. And I love you to fondle mc. But I must keep my proper place, the freedom which I have gained for myself by such arduous efforts. I have said to you al- ready, * So far as my will goes, I am yours; take me, and do as you choose with me. ' That much I can yield, as every good woman should yield it, to the man she loves, to the man who loves her. But more than that, no. It would be treason to my sex; not my life, not my future, not my individuality, not my freedom." "I wouldn't ask you for those," Alan an- swered, carried away by the torrent flood of her passionate speech. " I would wish you to guard them. But, Herminia, just as a matter of form, — to prevent the world from saying the cruel things the world is sure to say, — and as an act of justice to you, and your children! A mere ceremony of marriage ; what more does it mean now-a-days than that we two agree to live together on the ordinary terms of civilized society.? " Still Ilcjminia shook her head. "No, no," THE WOMAN WHO DID. 43 I She cried vehemently. "I deny and decline those terms; they are part and parcel of a sys- tem of slavery. I have learnt that the ri-hteons soul should avoid all appearance of evil. " I will not palter and parley with the unholy thin^,^ Even thou<;h you go to a rc-istry-office ami get rid as far as you can of every relic of the sacerdotal and sacramental idea, yet the mar- riage itself is still an assertion of man's supre- macy over woman. It ties her to him for life, it ignores her individuality, it compels her to promise what no human heart can be sure of performing; for you can contract to do or not to do, easily enough, but contract to feel or not to feel, —what transparent absurdity! It is full of all evils, and I decline to consider it. If I love a man at all, I must love him on terms of perfect freedom. I can't bind myself down to live with him to my shame one day longer than I love him; or to love him at all if I ffnd him unworthy of my purest love, or unable to retain it; or if I discover some other more fit to be loved by me. You admitted the other day that all this was abstractly true; why should you wish this morning to draw back from folluw'ing it out to its end in practice.? " Alan was only an Englishman, and shared, of course, the inability of his countrymen to carry any principle to its logical conclusion 44 Till-: WOMAN WHO DID. P l! i U, He was all for admittini; that thoiif;h thin.cjs must really be so, yet it were priulent in life to pretentl they were otherwise. This is the well-known l^iglish virtue of moderation and compromise; it has made ICnL^land what she is, the shabbiest, sordidest, worst-organized of natioUvS. So he paused for a second and tem- porized. "It's for your sake, Herminia," he said ajrain ; "I can't bear to think of your m ak- ing yourself a martyr. And I don't see how, if you act as you propose, you could escape martyrdom." Herminia looked up at him with pleading eyes. Tears just trembled on the cd^^c of those glistening lashes. "It never occurred to me to think," she said gently but bravely, "my life could ever end in anything else but martyrdom. It ;;///i'/ needs be so with all true lives, and all good ones. For whoever sees the truth, whoever strives earnestly with all his soul to be good, must be raised many planes above the common mass of men around him; he must be a moral pioneer, and the moral pioneer is always a martyr. People won't allow others to be wiser and better than themselves, unpun- ished. They can forgive anything except moral superiority. We have each to choose between acquiescence in the wrong, with a life of ease, and struggle for the right, crowned at last by \ TllK \V(.)MAN WHO DID. 45 inevitable failure. To succeed is to fail, and failure is the only success worth aiming- at Every great and good life can but end "in a Calvary." "And I want to save you from that," Alan cried, leaning over her with real tenrlcrness, for she was already very dear to him. - I want to save you from yourself; I want to make you think twice before you rush headlong into such a danger. " "JVot to save me from myself, but to save me from my own higher and better nature," Herminia answered with passionate serious- ness. -Alan, I don't want any man to save me from that; I want you rather to help me to strengthen me, to sympathize with me I want you to love me, not for my face and form alone, not for what I share with every other woman, but for all that is holiest and deepest within me. If you can't love me for that, I don't ask you to love me; I want to be loved for what I am in myself, for the yearnings I possess that are most of all peculiar to me. I know you are attracted to me by those yearn- ings above everything; why wish me untrue to them.? It was because I saw yr)u could sym- pathize with me in these impulses that I said to myself, Here, at last, is the man who can go through life as an aid and a spur to me. Don't 46 Tin: WOMAN WHO nil). tell me I was mistaken; don't belie my belief. 15c what I th()U,<;ht yon were, what I know you arc. Work with me, and help me. Lift me! raise me! exalt me! Take me on the sole terms on which I can ^mvc myself up to you." She stretched her arms out, pleadini;; she turned those subtle eyes to him, appeal in_L,^ly. She was a beautiful woman. Alan Merrick was human. The man in him p;avcway; he seized her in his clasp, and pressed her close to his bosom. It heaved tumultuously. " I could do anything for you, Herminia," he cried, "and indeed, I do sympathize with you. But give me, at least, till to-morrow to think ^his thing over. K is a momentous question; - 't let us be precipitate." Herminia drew a long breath. His embrace thrilled through her. "As you will," she answered with a woman's meekness. "But remember, Alan, what I say I mean; on these terms it shall be, and upon none others. Ikave women before me have tried .for awhile to act on their own responsibility, for the good of their sex; but never of thoir o^vn free will from the very beginning. They have avoided marriage, not because they thought it a shame and a surrender, a treason to their sex, a base yielding to the unjust pretensions of men, but because there existed at the time some obstacle i 1 i THE WOMAN WHO DID. 47 in their way in the shape of the vested interest of some other woman. When Mary Godwin chose to mate herself witli Shelley, slie took her good name in her hands; but still there was Harriet. As soon as Harriet was dead, Mary showed she had no deej) principle of action involved, by marrying Shelley. When George Eliot chose to pass her life with Lewes on terms of equal freedom, she defied the man- made law; but still, there was his wife to pre- vent the possibility of a legalized union. As soon as Lewes was dead, George Eliot showed she had no principle involved, by marrying another man. Now, / have the rare chance of acting otherwise; I can show the world from the very first that I act from principle, and from principle only. I can say to it in effect, * See, here is the man of my choice, the man I love, truly, and purely, the man any one of you would willingly have seen offering himself in lawful marriage to your own daughters. If I would, I might go the beaten way you pre- scribe, and marry him legally. But of my own free will I disdain that degradation; I choose rather to be free. No fear of your scorn, no dread of your bigotry, no shrinking at your cruelty, shall prevent me from following the thorny path I know to be the right one. I seek no temporal end. I will not prove false 48 THE WOMAN WHO DID. i to the future of rny kind in order to protect myself from your hateful indignities. I know on what vile foundations your temple of wed- lock is based and built, what pitiable victims languish and die in its sickening vaults; and I will not consent to enter it. Here, of mv own free will, take my stand for the right, and refuse your sanctions ! No woman that I know of has ever yet done that. Other women have fallen, as men choose to put it in their odious dialect; no other has voluntarily risen as I pro- pose to do. ' " She paused a moment for breath. "Now you know how I feel," she continued, looking straight into his eyes. " Say no more at present ; it is wisest so. But go home and think it out, and talk it over with me to- morrow." TUK WOMAN WHO DID. 49 IV. i;..AT night Alan slept little. Kven .t dinner h.s hcstess, Mrs. Watcrton, noticed Ms p '- he retired early to his own bedroom His .dcas of hers; how conld he listen with a he- com.ns show of interest to Kthel VVaterton', asp.rat.ons on the grand piano after g sy oh^t ir' ''^' '■' '^-•'— hen in point cover .r ""°'' '"''P''' hlondefrom the cover of a chocolate bo.x.' So he went to bed bet.mos, and there lay ■ ,ng aw.ake, ])r()ved of. Alan seated himself by her side, and took her hand in his; Herminia let him hold it. This love- making was pure honey. Dappled spots of light and shade flecked the ground beneath the trees like a jaguar's skin. Wood-pigeons crooned, unseen, from the leafy covert. She sat there long without uttering a word. Once Alan essayed to speak, but Ilerminia cut him short. "Oh, no, not yet," she cried half petu- lantly; "this silence is so delicious. I love best just to sit and hold your hand like this. Why spoil it with language.''" So they sat for some minutes, Ilerminia with her eyes half closed, drinking in to the full the delight of first love. She could feel her heart beating. At last Alan interposed, and began to speak to her. The girl drew a long breath; then she sighed for a second, as she opened her eyes again. lu'ery curve of her bosom heavca and swayed mysteriously. It seemed such a pity to let articulate words disturb that reverie. Still, if Alan wished it. For a woman is THE WOMAN WHO DH). 59 a woman, let Girton do its worst; and Ilcr- niinia not less but rather more than the rest of them. ^ Then Alan began. With her hand clasped in his, and fondling it while he spoke, he urged all he could urge to turn her from her purpo^se He pointed out to her how unwise, how irre- trievable her position would be, if she once assumed it. On such a road as that there is no turning back. The die once cast, she must for- ever abide by it. He used all arts to persuade and dissuade; all eloquence to save her from herself and her salvation. If he loved her less he said with truth, he might have spoken less earnestly. It was for her own sake he spoke because he so loved her. He waxed hot in his eager desire to prevent her from taking this fatal step. He drew his breath hard, and paused. Emotion and anxiety overcame him visibly. But as for Herminia, though she listened with affection and with a faint tlirill of pleasure to much that he said, seeing how deeply he loved her, she leaned back from time to time half weary with his eagerness, and his conse' qucnt iteration. " Dear Alan," she said at last soothing his hand with her own, as a sister might have .soothed it, "you talk about all this as though it were to me some new resolve, K1 60 THE WOMAN WHO DID. m \\ W some new idea of my making. You forget it is the outcome of my life's philosophy. I have grown up to it slowly. I have thought of all this, and of hardly anything else, ever since I was old enough to think for myself about anything. Root and branch, it is to me a foregone conclusion. I love you. You love me. So far as I am concerned, there ends the question. One way there is, and one way alone, in which I can give myself up to you. Make me yours if you will; but if not, then leave me. Only, remember, by leaving me, you won't any the more turn me aside from my purpose. You won't save me from myself, as you call it; you will only hand me over to some one less fit for me by far than you are." A quiet moisture glistened in her eyes, and she gazed at him pensively. " How wonderful it is," she went on, musing. "Three weeks ago, I didn't know t*;ire was such a man in the world at all as you; and now — why, Alan, I feel as if the world would be nothing to me without you. Your name seems to sing in my cars all day long with the song of the birds, and to thrill through and through me as I lie awake on my pillow with the cry of the night- jar. Yet, if you won't take me on my own terms, I know well what will happen. I shall go away, and grieve over you, of course, and THE WOMAN WHO DID. 6l feci bereaved for months, as if I could never possibly ai;ain love any man. At present it seems to mc I never could love him. JUit though my heart tells me that, my reason tells me I should some day find some other soul I might perhaps fall back upon. But it would only be falling back. For the sake of my prin- ciples alone, and of the example I wish to set the world, could I ever fall back upon any other. Yet fall back I would. And what good would you have done me then by refusing ''me .? You would merely have cast me off from the man I love best, the man who I know by immc- diate instinct, which is the voice of nature and of God within us, was intended from all time for me. The moment I saw you my heart beat quicker; my heart's evidence told me you were the one love meant for me. Why force me to decline upon some other less meet for me.? " Alan gazed at her, irresolute. "But if you love me so much," he said, "surely, surely, it is a small thing to trust your future to me." The tenderness of woman let her hand glide over his cheek. She was not ashamed of her love. "O Alan," she cried, "if it were only for myself, I could trust you with my life; I could trust you with anything. lUit I haven't only myself to think of. I have to think of right and wrong; I have to think of the world- ■^, 62 TIIF WOMAN WHO DID. I have to think of the cause which almost wholly han(;s upon me. Not for nothin^^ arc these impulses im})lante(l in my breast. They are tlie voice of tiie soul of all women within me. If I were to neglect them for the sake of gratifying your wishes, — if I were to turn traitor to my sex for the sake of the man I love, as so many women have turned before me, I should hate and despise myself. I could n't love you, Alan, quite S(j much, loved I not honor more, and the battle imposed upon me." Alan wavered as she si)oke. He felt what she said was true; even if he refused to tak(i her on the only terms she could accept, he would not thereby save her. She would turn in time and liestow herself upon some man who would perhaps be less worthy of her, — nay even on some man who might forsake her in the secpiel witii unspeakable treachery. Of conduct like that, Alan knew himselt incapable. He knew that if he' took Ilerminia onc(i to his heart, he would treat her with such tenderness, such constancy, such devotion as never yet was shown to living woman. (Love always thinks so.) Hut still, he shrank frcm the idea of being himself the man to take advantage of her; for so in his unregenerate mind he phrased to himself their union. And still he temporized. ** Even so, Herminia, " he cried, bending for- i THE WOMAN WHO DID. ^>l ward and gazing hard at her, " I could n't endure to have It said it was I who misled you." licrminia lifted her eyes to his with just a tinge of lofty scorn, tempered only ])y the womanliness of those melting lashes "And you can think of /W/" she murmured, gazin- across at him half in tears. "Q Alan, for my part I can think of n )thing now but the truths of life and the magnitude of the issues. Our hearts against the world,- love and duty against convention." Then Alan began again and talked all he knew. He urged, he i)rayed, he bent forward he spoke soft and low, he played on her ten- derest chords as a loving woman. Merminia was moved, for her heart went forth to liim and she knew why he tried so hard to save her from her own higher and truer nature. Jiut she never yielded an inch. She stood firm to her colors. She shook her head to the last and mur-nured over and over again, "There is only one right way, and no persuasion on earth will ever avail to turn me aside from it " The Truth hud made her iM'ee, and she was very confident of it. At last, all fKher means failing, Alan fell hack on the final resort of delay. He saw much merit in pro( fascination. There was no hurry, he said. They /.H^'ed n't make uj) their I 64 THE WOMAN WHO DID. minds, one w.iy or the other, immediately. They could take their time lo think. Perhaps, with a week or two to decide in, Herminia might persuade him; or he might persuade her. Why rush on fate so suddenly? But at that, to his immense surprise, Her- minia demurred. "No, no," she saitl, shaking her head, "thar's not at all what I want. W'e must decide to-day one way or the other. Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salva- tion. I couldn't let you wait, and slip by de- grees into some vague arrangement we hardly contemplated definitely. To do that would be to sin against my ideas of decorum. Whatever we do we must do, as the apostle says, decently and in order, wiih a full sense of the obliga- tions it imposes apon us. We must say to one another in so many words, *I am yours; you are mine;' or we must part forever. I have U)'u\ you my whole soul; I have bared my heart before you. Y(ju may take it or leave it; but for my dignity's sake, I put it to you now, choose one way or the other." Alan looked at her hard. Her face was crim- son by this with maidenly shame; but she made no effort to hide or avert it. l^'or the good of humanity, this question must be settled once for all; and no womanish reserve should make her shrink from settling it. Happier maidens i THE WOMAN' wiro nin. 65 in ap^es to come, when society had reconstructed itself on the broad basis of freedom, would never have to go throuL;h what she was goini; throui^h that moment. They would be spared the fiuiv- ering shnme, the tin^lin*^ reijjret, the strui^^le with which she braced up her maiden modesty to that supreme effort. Ikit she would <^^o ^' rou<^di with it all the same. For eternal woman's sake she had lonj; contemplated that day ; now it iiad come at last, she would not weakly draw back from it. Alan's eyes were all admiration. lie stood near emugh to her level to understand her to the core. ** Ilerminia," he cried, bending over her, '*you drive me to bay. You p>ress me very hard. I feel myself yielding. I am a man; and when you speak to me like that, I know it. You enlist on your side all that is virile witiiin me. Yet how can I accept the terms you offer .^ 1^'or the very love I bear you, how do you this injustice. If I loved y^u less, I might per- haps say yts; because I love you so well, I feel compelled to say fio to you." Herminia looked at him hard in return. Her cheeks were glowing now with something like the shame of the woman who feels her love is lightly rejected. "Is that final .^" she asked, drawing herself u[> as she sat. and facing him oro'i W. I 66 THE WOMAN WHO DH). ** No, no, it's not final," Alan answered, feel- ing the woman's inrtuence course through body an d bl 0(J(J to 1 lis ciuiverin; fi nger-tii)S. M iL:i- cal touches stirred hi m. How can it be final, Herminia, when you look at me like that? Mow can it be final, when you 're so gracious, so graceful, so beautiful? Oh, my child, I am a man; don't play too hard on those fiercest chords in my nature." Herminia gazed at him fixedly; the dimi)les disaj)peared. Her voice was more serious now, and had nothing in it of pleading. "It isn't like that thai I want to draw you, i\lan," she answered gravely. ** It isn't those chords I want to play upon. I want to convince your brain, your intellect, your reason. You agree with me in principle. Why then, should you wish to draw back in practice?" "Yes, I agree with you in principle," Alan answered. "It isn't tiiore that I hesitate. K\en before I met you, I had arrived at pretty much the same ideas mys If, as a matter of abstract reasoning. I saw that the one way of freedcMTi for the woman is to cast off, root and liranch, the evil growth of man's supremacy. I snw that the honor il)leness of marriage, the di.-^grace of free union, were just so many ignoble masculine devices to keep up man's lordship; vile results of his determination to THE WOMAN WHO Km. 67 aboo to himself l.cfor.I.and and n,onopoli,o for I.fo some particular woman. I know all that; I acknowlalgc all that. I sec as plainly -s yon do that sooner or later there must come a revolution. Jiut, llenninia, the women who devote themselves to earryin^ out that revolu- t.nn, will take their .souls in their hand.s, and will march in line to the freein- of iheir se.x ll'rou.^di shame and calumny and hardships innumerable. I shrink fr.un lettim,^ you the woman that I love, brin^ that fate upon your- sell; I shrink still more from beinj; the man to aid and abet you in doini; it." Herminia fi.ved l,er piercing eyes upon his face once more. Tears stood in them now. ihe tenderness of woman was awakened within her. "Dear Alan," she said gently, "don't I tell you I have thou-ht long since .,f all that' 1 am /,•ttage of her own, she told Alan, — a t'ny little cottage, in a street near her school-work ; she rented it for a small sum, in (juite a poor (piarter, all inhabited by work-people. There she lived by herself; for she ke{)t no servants. There she should continue to live; why need this purely personal com[>act between them two make any difference in her daily habit;; .^ She would go on with her school-work for the present, as I! 1 73 Tin-: WOMAN WHO did. usual. Oh, no, she certainly did n't intend to notify the head-mistress of the school or any one else, (;f her altered position. It was no alteration of position at all, so far as she was concerned; merely the addition to life of a new and very dear and natural friendship. Herminia took her own point of view so in- stinctively indeed, — lived so wrapped in an ideal world of her own and the future's, — that Alan was often quite alarmed in his soul when he thought of the rude awakening that no douht awaited her. Yet whenever he hinted it to her with all possible delicacy, she seemed so per- fectly prepared for the orst the world could do, so fixed and resolved in her intention of martyrdom, that he had no argument left, and could only sigh over her. It was not, she explained to him further, that she wished to conceal anything. The least tinge of concealment was wholly alien to that frank fresh nature. If he'r head-mistress asked her a point-blank question, she woukl not attempt to parry it, but would reply at once with a point blank answer. Still, her \ery views on the subject made it impossible for her to volunteer information unasked to any one. Here was a personal matter of the utmost privacy; a matter which concerned nobody on earth, save herself and Alan; a matter on which TIIK WOMAN WHO DID. 73 it vvns the fjrosscst impertinence for any one else to make any incjuiry or hokl any oi)inion. They two chose to be friends; ami there, so far as the rest of tlie world was concerned, the whole thini; ended. What else took place between them was wholly a subject for their own consideration. lUit if ever circumstances sliould arise whicli made it necessary for her to avow to tlu' world that slie must soon he a mother, then it was for the woi Id to take the first step, if it wmild act u[)on its own hateful and cruel initiative. She wouUl never deny, but she would never j^o out of her way to confess. She stood upon her individuality as a human bcini;. As to other practical matters, about which Alan ventured delicately to throw out a pass- ing question or two, Ilerminia was perfectly frank, with the perfect frankness of one who thinks and does nothing to be ashamed of. She had always been self-supporting, she said, and she would be self-supporting still. To her mind, that was an essential step towards the emancipation of women. Their friendship im- plied for her no change of existence, merely an addition to the fulness of her living. He was the complement of her being. Iwery woman should naturally wish to live her whole life, to fulfil her whole functions; and that she could do only by becoming a mother, accepting the orbit 74 THE WOMAN WIID DFD. for which nature desi^nicd her. In the end, no doubt, c()nii)lete independence would be secured for each woman l)y the civil izetl state, or in other words by the whole body of men, who do the hard work of the woi Id, and who would col- lectively g'larantee every necessary and luxury to every wonian of the community equally. In that way alone could perfect liberty of choice and action be secured for women; and she held it just that women should so be provided for, because the mothers of the community fulfil in the state as important and necessary a function as the men themselves do. It woukl be well, too, that the mothers should be free to perform that function without ])reoccu]iation of any sort. So a free world would order thim;s. l>ut in our present barbaric state of industrial slavery, ca])italism, monopoly, — in other words under the ori^anized rule of selfishness, — such a course was impossible. Perhaps, as an inter- mediate condition, it miL;ht hajipen in time that the women of certain classes would for the most part be made independent at maturity each by h<.'r own father; which would produce for them in the end prettv much the same i;'en- eral effect of freedom. She saw as a first step the endowment of the (lau,L;hter. J5ut mean- while there was nothiiiL; for it save that as many women as could should aim for them- TIIF. WOMAN WHO DID. 75 selves at economic liberty, in other words at sclf-su[)purt. That was an evil in itself, because obviously the prospective mothers of a com- munity should be relieved as far as possible from the stress and strain of earning a liveli- hood; should be set free to build up their nervous systems to the highest attainable level against the calls of maternity. 15ut above all things we must be practical; and in the prac- tical world here and now around us, no other way existed for women to be free save the wasteful way of each earning her own liveli- hood. Therefore she would continue her school- work with her pupils as long as the school would allow her; and when that became impos- sible, wouUl fall back upon literature. One other question Alan ventured gently to raise, — the question of children. Fools always put that cpiestion, and think it a crushing one. Alan was no fool, yet it puzzled him strangely. He did not see for himself how easy is the so- lution; how absolutely Ilerminia's plan leaves the position unaltered. \h\t Ilerminia herself was as modestly frank on the subject as on every other. It was a moral and social point of the deepest importance; and it would be wrong of them to rush into it without due con- sideration. She had duly considered it. She would give her chiKlren, should any come, the unique and glorious birthright of being the m 76 THE WOMAN WHO DH). only human beini^^s ever born into this world as the deliberate result of a free union, con- tracted on i)hilosoi)hical and ethical principles. Alan hinted certain doubts as to their up-bring- ing an.l education. There, too, llerminia was perfectly frank. They would be half hers, half his; the pleasant burden of their sui)imrt, the joy of their education, woul 1 naturally fall ujion both parents equally, liut why discuss these matters like the squalid rich, who make their marriages a question of settlements and dow- ries and business arrangements.^ They two were friends and lovers; in love, such base doubts could never arise. Not for worlds would she import into their mutual relations any sordid stain of money, any vile tinge of bargaining. They could trust one another: that alone sufficed for them. So Alan gave way bit by bit all along the line, overborne by Herminia's more perfect and logical conception of her own j-)rincii)les. She knew exactly what she felt and wanted; while he knew only in a vague and formless way that his reason agreed with her. A week later, he knocked timidly one evening at the door of a modest little workman-looking cottage, down a small side street in the back- wastes of Chelsea. 'Twas a most uni->retending street ; l?ower Lane by name, full of brown brick iiouses, all as like as peas, and with THE WOMAN' WHO DID. 11 nothinj; of any sort to redeem tlieir plain (rr)nts from tlie common blii;lit of llie London jerry- builder. Only a soft serge curtain and a pot of mi.i;nonette on the led^ge of the window, dis- tiuL^uished the cotta;;e at which Alan Merrick knocked from the others beside it. IC.xternally that is to say; for within it was as dainty as Morris wall-jxipers an 1 merino hani^in^s and a delicate feminine taste in form and color could make it. Keats and Shelley lined the shelves; Rossetti's wan maidens gazetl un- earthly from the over-niantel. The door was opened for him by Ilerminia in person; for she kept no servant, — that was one of her prin- ciples. Sh : was dressed from head to foot in a simple white gown, as pure and sweet as the soul it covered. A white rose nestled in her glossy hair; three sprays of widto lily decked a vase on the mantel-piece. Some dim sur- vival of ancestral ideas made Ilerminia l^narton so array herself in the white garb of affiance for her bridal evening. Her clieek was aglow with virginal shrinking as she opened the door, and welcomed Alan in. But she held out her hand just as frankly as ever to the man of her free choice as he advancerl to greet her. /Man caught her in his arms and kissed her forehead tenderly. An^l thus was Ilerminia Harton's espousal consummated. 78 TIIF. WO.MAiN Wild 1>I|J. VII. if The next six months were the happiest time ot her life, for Ilerminia. All day lon^;- she worked hard with her classes; and often in the even- ings Alan Merrick dropped in for sweet con- verse and companionship. Too free from atiy taint of sin or shame herself ev«.r to suspect that others could misinterpret her actions, Ilerminia was hardly aware how the gossip of I^ower Lane made free in time with the name of the youni; lady who had taken a cotta<;e in the row, and whose relations with the tall gentleman that called so much in the evenings were beginning to attract the attention of the neighborhood. The poor slaves of washer- women and working men's wives all around, with whom contented slavery to a drunken hus- band was the only "respectable" condition, — couldn't understand for the life of them how the pretty young lady could make her name so cheap; "and her that i)retends to be so chari- table and that, and goes about in the jiarish like a district vi.sitor!" ThouLih to be sure it Tin: WOMAN WHO DID. 79 had already struck tlic inindh of I^ower Lane that Ilcnninia luvcr went "to churcli nor chapel;" and when i)eople cut themselves adrift from church and chapel, why, what sort of morality can you reasonahly expect of them? Nevertheless, Ilerminia's manners were so sweet and engagini;, to rich and j)oor alike, that l^ower Lane seriously regretted what it took to he her lapse from i;race. Poor purblind Bower Lane! A life-time would have failed it to discern for itself how infinitely higher than its slavish "respectability" was Ilerminia's freedom. Li which respect, indeed, Hower Lane was no doubt on a dead level with Heli^n-avia, or, for the matter of that, with Lambeth Palace. Ikit Merminia, for her i)art, never iliscovered she was talked about. To the i)ure all things are pure; and Ilerminia was dowered with that perfect purity. And though Power Lane lay but some few hundred yaids olf from the Ca»"lyle Place Ciirl's School, the social (;ulf between them yet yawned so wide that i^ood old ALss Smith-Waters from Cambridi^^e, the head-mistress of the school, never cauu;ht a siuLjle echo of the washeiwomen's <;()ssip. Herminia's life throuirh those si.\ months was one unclouded honeymoon. On Sundays, she and Alan wt)uld j;o out of town together, and btroU across the breezy summit of Leith Hill, 80 THK WOMAN WHO DID. or among the brown heather and garrulous jHUL'-wootls that perlunic the radiating spurs of Hind Mead with their aromaLic resins. Her h)ve for Ahm was profound and absorbing J-) > vv hile as for Alan, the more he gazed into the calm depths of that crystal soul, the more deeply did he admire it. Gradually she was raising him to her own level. It is impossible to mix with a lofty nature and not acquire in time some tincture of its nobler and more gen- erous sentiments. Hcrminia was weaning Alan by degrees from the world ; she was teaching him to see that moral ])urity and moral earnest- ness are worth more, after all, than to dwell with purple hangings in all the tents of iniquity. She was making him understand and sympathize with the motives which led her stoutly on to her final martyrdom, w' h made her submit without a murmur of discontent to her great renunciation. As yet, however, there was no hint or fore- cast of actual martyrdom. On the contrary, her life flowed in all the halo of a honeymoon. It was a honeymoon, too, undisturbed by the ]ietty jars and discomforts of domestic life; she saw Alan too seldom for either ever to lose the keen sense of fresh delight in the other's presence. When she met him, she thrilled to the delicate finger-tips. llerminia had planned nil; WOMAN Willi HID, ai it so of HL't pur|)osc. In her reasoned pliilos- nj)hy of life, she had early decidetl th.it 't is the wear and tear of too t lose daily int-.-rcourse which turns unawares the lover into the hus- band; and she had determined that in her own converse with the man she loved that cause of disillusion should never intrude itself. They conserved their romance throujjjh all their pli<;hted and united life. Herminia had after- wards no recollections of Alan to look back upon save ideally happy ones. So six months wore away. On the memory of those six months Ilerminia was to subsist for half a lifetime. At the end of that time, Alan bcLfan to fear that if she did not soon withdraw fr(jm the Carlyle Place School, IMiss Smith-Waters mii;ht be^in to ask inconvenient questions. Ilerminia, ever true to her j)rin- ciples, was for stoppinijj on till the bitter enti, and compelling Miss Smith-Waters to dismiss her from her situation. lUit Alan, more worldly wise, foresaw that such a course must inevitably result in needless annoyance and humiliation for Ilerminia; and Ilerminia was ncnv be.L,nn- nin<; to be so far influenced by Alan's person- ality that she yielded the [)oint with reluctance to his masculine jud.;ment. It must be always so. The man must needs retain for many years to come the personal hegemony he has usurped 82 Till-: WOMAN WHO Din. (jvcr the woman ; and the woman wlio once ac- cepts him as lover or as luis])an(l must j^Mve way in tlie end, even in matters of i)rinci|)le, to his virile self-assertion. She would be less a woman, and he less a man, were any other result })ossible. Deep down in the veiy roots of the idea oi sex we come on that j)rime antithesii th le male, active and aLrirressive the female, sedentary, passive, and rccej)tive. And even on the broader question, experience shows one it is always so in the world we live in. No man or w^oman can ^o throu_L;h life in consistent obedience to any hi[;h princi})le, — not even the willing anti deliberate martyrs. We must bow to circumstances. Ilerminia had made uj) her mind beforehand for the crown of martyrdom, the one possible guerdon this planet can l)estovv upon really noble and disin- terested action. And she never shrank from any necessary pang, incidental to the ])rophet's and martyr's existence. Yet even so, in a society almost wholly composed of mean and ju'tty souls, incapable of comprehending or appreciating any exalted moral standpoint, it is jiracticilly ini|)ossible to live from day to day in accordance with a higher or purer standard. The martyr who should try so to walk without deviation of any sort, turning neither to the right nor to the left in the smallest par- Till-: WOMAN WHO DID. «3 ticular, must acconiplisli his nKirtyrdom pre- maturely oil the pettiest side-issues, and would never live at all to assert at the stake the i;reat truth whieh is the lodestar ami -^oal of his existence. So Herminia gave way. Sadly a[;ainst her will she gave way. One morning in early March, she al)sented herself from her place in the class-room without even taking leave of her beloved schoolgirls, whom she liad tried so hard unobtrusively to train up towards a rational understanding of the universe around them, and sat down to write a final letter of farewell to poor straight-laced kind-hearted Miss Smith-Waters. She sat down to it with a sigh; for Miss Smith -Waters, though iier out- look ui)on the cosmos was through one narrow chink, was a good soul uj) to her Mghts, and had been really fond and proud of Herminia. She had rather shown her off, indeed, as a social trump card to the hesitating i)arent, — "This is our second mistress. Miss Barton; you know her father, perhaps; such an excell'-nt man, the Dean of Dunwich. " And now, Her- minia sat down with a heavy heart, thinking to herself what a stab of pain the avowal she had to make would send throbbing througii tiiat gentle old breast, and how absolutely incapal)lo dear Miss Smith-Waters could be of ever a[)pie- 84 Till-: WOMAN WHO DID. ciatinf( the conscientious reasons which had led her, Iphigenia like, to her self-imposed sacrifice. liut, for all that, she wrote her letter through, delicately, sweetly, with feminine tact and fem- inine reticence. She told Miss Smith-Waters frankly enough all it was necessary Miss Smith- Waters should know; but she said it with such daintiness that even that conventionalized and hided)()und old maid couldn't help feeling and recognizing the purity and nobility of her mis- guided action. Poor child, Miss Smith-W^aters thought; she was mistaken, of course, sadly and grievously mistaken; but, then, 'twas her heart that misled her, no doubt; and Miss Smith- Waters, having dim recollections of a far-away time when she herself too possessed some rudi- mentary fragment of such a central vascular organ, fairly cried over the poor girl's letter with sympathetic shame, and remorse, and vex- ation. Miss Smith-Waters could hardly be expected to understand that if Ilerminia had thought her conduct in the faintest degree wrong, or imleed anything but the highest and best for humanity, she could never conceivably have allowed even that loving heart of hers to hurry her into it. b'or llerminia's devotion to princi^de was not less but far greater than Miss Smith-Waters's own; only, as it hapjiened, THE WOMAN WHO Din. 85 the principles themselves were diametrically opposite. Ilermiiiia wrote her note with not a few tears for poor Miss Smith-Waters's (lisai)pointment. That is the worst of living; a life morally ahead of your contem})oraries ; what you do with pro- foundest conviction of its eternal rij^htness can- not fail to arouse hostile and painful feelin<^^s even in the souls of the most ri;_;lit-minded of your friends who still live in bondai^e to the conventional lies antl the conventional injus- tices. It is the good, indeed, who are most against you. Still, Herminia steeled her heart to tell the simple truth, — how, for the right's sake and humanity's she had made up her mind to eschew the accursed thing, and to strike one bold blow for the freedom and unfettered individuality of women. She knev/ in what obloquy her action would involve her, she said ; but she knew too, that to do right for right's sake was a duty imposed by nature upon every one of us; and that the clearer we could sec ahead, and the farther in front we could look, the more profoundly did that duty shine forth for us. I^'or her own part, she had never shrunk from doing what she knew to be right for man- kind in the end, though she felt sure it must lead her to personal misery. Yet unless one woman were prepared to lead the way, no free* Ml 86 TIIK WOMAN Wlln Din. dom was }-)ossihlc. Slic had found a man with wlioni she (^)iil(l spend her litr in s\inj)atliy aiul united usefulness; and witli him she had elected to s|)end it in the way pointed out to us by nature. Acting- on Ids advice, thouL;h some- what ai^ainst her own jud^i^ment, she meant to leave ]Cn<;land for the present, only returninL; a<.;ain when she could return with the dear life they had !)oth been instrumental in brin-ini; into the world, and to which henceforth her main attention must be directed. She signed it, "Your ever irrateful and devoted Mkkmima." Poor Miss Smith-Waters laid down that as- tonishing, that incredible letter in a perfect whirl of amazement antl stupefaction. She did n't know what to make of it. It seemed to run counter to all her preconceived ideas of moral action. That a young girl should ven- ture to think for herself at all about right and wrong was passing strange; that she should arrive at original notions upon those abstruse subjects, which were not the notions of con- stituted authority and of the universal slave- drivers and obscurantists generally, — notions full of luminousness upon tlie real relations and duties of our race, — was to poor, cramped Miss Smith-Waters well-nigh inconceivable. That a young girl should prefer freedom to slavery; should deem it more moral to retain THE WOMAN' WHO 1)1(1. 87 her (livincly-C(jnfcrro(l iiKlivuluality in spite of the world thun to yicUl it up to a iikiii tor lito in return for the price of her boanl and hxli;-- iuLr; should retuse to sell her own bodx for a comfortable home and the shelter ul a name, — • these things seemed !«• Miss Smith-Waters, with her smaller-catechism standards of right and wrong, scarcely short of sheer madness. Yet Ilerminia had so endeared herself to the okl lady's soul that on receipt of her letter Miss Smith-Waters went upstairs to her own room with a neuralgic headache, and never again in her life referred to her late second mistress in any other terms than as "my poor dear sweet misguided Ilerminia." But when it l^ecame kn<)\vn next morning in Bower Lane that the queenly-looking school- mistress who used to go round among "our girls " with tickets for concerts and lectures and that, hatl disappeared suddenly with the nicedooking young man who used to come a-courting her on vSundays antl evenings, the amazement and surprise (jf respectable l^ower Lane was simply unbounded. " Who would have thought," the red-faced matrons of the cottages remarked, over their c[uart of bitter, "the pore thing had it in her! Hut there, it's these demure ones as is always the slyest ! " For Bower Lane could o;ily judge that austere soul o^^ .CW\^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) €lo «// V •^ ^^ ^ A .^%. .y>^> /#.^ f/j y. I I. I.I 1.25 S IIIIIM ijim It I;. 11 1.4 !!'M 1.8 1.6 V} (^ /; c;>^ f* -m (5> -*^- ^ /. 7 ^^^ ^/^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STSEET WEBSTEK,N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ^ # 4>^ iV \ \ % V ^^ <1? <3 c> % '^ ^1 <^ ^^ w- Cp. k % I & % 88 THE WOMAN WHO DID. by its own vulg-ar standard (as did also Be?- gravia). Most luvv minds, indeed, imagine abso- lute hypocrisy must be involved in any striving after goodness and abstract right -doing on the part of any who happen to disbelieve in their own blood-thirsty deities, or their own vile woman-degrading and prostituting morality. In the topsy-turvy philosophy of liower Lane and of Belgravia, what is usual is right; while any conscious striving to be better and nobler than the mass around one is regarded at once as cither insane or criminal. ^■i--i?ss^-i«=-^a/j-.. THE WOMAN WHO DID. 89 VIII. They were bound for Italy; so Alan had de- cided. Turning over in his mind the pros and cons of the situation, he had wisely determined that Ilerminia's confinement had better take place somewhere else than in England. The difficulties and inconveniences which block the way in English lodgings would have been well- nigh insufferable; in Italy, people would only know that an English signora and her husband had taken apartments for a month or two in some solemn old palazzo. To Ilerminia, in- deed, this expatriation at such a moment was in many ways to the last degree distasteful; for her own part, she hated the merest ai pcarance of concealment, and would rather have Haunted the open expression of her supreme moral faith before the eyes of all London. lUit Alan pointed out to her the many practical diffieul- tics, amounting almost to impossibilities, which beset suck a course; and Ilerminia, though it was hateful to her thus to yield to the immoral prejudices of a false social system, gave way go 'IIIE WOMAN WHO DID. m I at last to Alan's repeated expression of the necessity for prudent and practical action. She wo: .1 1 ;o with him to Italy, slie said, as a ]:)roof of her affection and her confidence in his judg- ment, thou^jjh she still thouijht the right thing was to stand by her guns fearlessly, and fight it out to the bitter end undismayed in England. On tliC morning of their departure, Alan called to see his father, and cxjdain the situa- tion. He felt some explanation was by this time necessary. As yet no one in London knew anything officially as to his relations with Merminia; and for Hcrminia's sake, Alan had hitherto ke})t them perfectly private. But now, further reticence was both useless and undesir- able; he determined to make a clean breast of the whole story to his father. It was early for a barrister to be leaving town for the Easter vacation; and though Alan had chambers of his own in Lincoln's Inn, where he lived by himself, he was so often in and out of the house in ILirley Street that his absence from Lon- don would at once have attracted the parental attention. Dr. Merrick was a model of the close-shaven clear-cut London consultant. His shirt-front was as impeccable as his moral character was spotless — in the way that Rclgravia and Far- ley Street still understood spotlessness. He THE WOMAN WHO hll). 91 if I was tall and straiglit, and unl)cnt by a:;-o; the professional poker wliieh he had swallowed in early life seemed to stand hini in -ood stead after sixty years, thou-h his hair had whitened fast, and his l)row was furrowed with most deliberative wrinkles. So unapproaehable he looked, tliat not even his own sons dared speak frankly before him. His very smile was re- strained; he hardly permitted himself for a moment that weak human relaxation. Alan called at Harley Street immediately after breakfast, just a cpiarter of an horn- Ijefore the time allotted to his father's first patient. Dr. Merrick received him in the consulting- room with an interro<;ative raisin.i; of those straight, thin eyebrows. The mere l(V)k on his face disconcerted Alan. With an effort the son began and explained his errand. Mis father settled himself down into his ami^le and digni- fied professional chair — old oak roundd)acked, — and with head half turned, and hands folded in front of him, seemed to diagnose with rapt attention this singular form of psychological malady. When Alan paused for a seconc? be- tween his halting sjntences and lloundered about in search of a more delicate way of glid- ing over the thin ice, his father eyed him closely with those keen, gray orbs, and after a moment's hesitation put in a "Well, continue," 9' THE WOMAN WHO DH). .1 without the faintest sign of any human emotion. Alan, tluis driven to it, achnitted awkwardly hit hy bit that he was leavinu; London before the end of term beeause he iiad managed to get himself into delicate relati(jns with a lady. Dr. Merrick twirled his thumbs, and in a colorless voice enquired, without relaxing a muscle of his set face, "What sort of lady, please.^ A lady of the ballet.^" "Oh, no!" Alan cried, giving a little start of horror. "Quite different from that. A real lady." "They always arc real ladies, — for the most part brought down by untoward circumstances," his father responded coldly. " As a rule, indeed, I observe, they 're clergyman's daughters." "This one is," Alan answered, growing hot. " In point of fact, to prevent ycur saying any- thing you might afterwards regret, I think I 'd better mention the lady's name. It 's Miss Herminia Ikirton, the Dean of Dunwich's daughter." His father drew a long breath. The corners of the clear-cut mouth dropped down for a second, and the straight, thin eyebrows were momentarily elevated. But he gave no other overt sign of dismay or astonishment. "That makes a great difference, of course," »i ,!l THE WOMAN WHO DID 93 he answered, after a \oivj; pause. "She ts a lady, I admit. And she 's been to Girton." "She has," the son replied, seareely luiowing how to continue. Dr. Merrick twirled his thum])s once more, witn outward cahn, for a minute or two. This was most inconvenient in a professional family. "And I understand you to say," he went on in a pitiless voice, "Miss Barton's state of health is such that you think it advisable to remove her at once — for her confinement, to Italy.?" "Exactly so," Alan answered, gulpin^^ down his discomfort. The father ^azed at him long and steadily. "Well, I always knew you were a fool," he said at last with paternal candor; "but I never yet knew you were quite such a fool as this business shows you. You '11 have to marry the girl now in the end. Why the devil could n't you marry her outright at first, instead ot se- ducing her.'' " " I did not seduce her," Alan answered stoutly. "No man on earth could ever succeed in seduc- ing that stainless woman." Dr. Merrick stared hard at him without changing his attitude on his old oak chair. Was the boy going mad, or what the dickens did he mean by it.? "You /iav^ seduced her," he said slowly. 94 THE WOMAN WHO DID. 'IP '' 111: "And slic is ;/o/ stainless if she has allowed you to do so." " It is the innocence whicli survives exiicriencc that I value, not the innocence which dies with it," Alan answered <;ravely. " I don't understand these delicate distinc- tions," Dr. Merrick interposed with a polite sneer. " I f^atliei' from what you said just now that the lady is shortly expecting her confine- ment ; and as she isn't married, you tell me, I naturally infer that somebody must have seduced her — either you, or some other man." It was Alan's turn now to draw himself up very stiflly. "I beg your pardon." he answered; "you have no right to speak in such a tone about a lady in Miss Barton's i)osition. Miss IJarton has conscientious scruples about the marriage- tie, which in theory I share with her; she was unwilling to enter into any relations with me cxce})t on terms of perfect freedom." "I sec," the old man went on with provoking calmness. ** She preferred, in fact, to be, not your wife, but your mistress." Alan rose indignantly. "Father," he said, with just wrath, " if you insist upon discussing this matter with me in such a spirit, I must refuse to stay here. T came to tell you the difficulty in which I find myself, and to explain Tin: ^V()^rA\ who md 95 to you my jiosition. If you won't let mc tell you in my own way, I must leave the house without havin- laid the facts before you." The father spread his two palms in front of him with demonstrative openness. "As you will," he answered. " My time is much en-aoed. I expect a patient at a quarter past ten.'' You must be brief, please." Au:n made one more effort. In a very earnest voice, he be-an to expound to his father Herminia's point of view. Dr. Merrick listened for a second or two in calm impatience. Then he consulted his watch. '' Excuse me," he said. "I have just three minutes. Let us o-^t at once to the practical part — the therapeutks of the case, omitting its aetiology. You 're go- ing to take the young lady to Italy. When s'he gets there, will she marry you.? And do you expect me to help in providing for you both after this insane adventure.'" Alan's face was red as fire. *'She will wt marry me when she gets to Italy," he answered decisively. -And I don't want you to do any- thing to provide for either of us." The father looked at him with the face he was wont to assume in scanning tlie appearance of a confirmed monomaniac. ''She will not marry you," he answered sh)wly; "and you intend to go on living with her in open con- cf, THE WOMAN Wllf) DID. W cu])ina,G;c! A lady of birth and position! Is that your mcanin*^?" "Father," Alan cried dcspairin^^ly, "Ilcr- minia would not consent to live with me on any other terms. To her it would be disf^racjful, shameful, a sin, a reproach, a dereliction of principle. She could ii t j^o back upon her whole past life. She lives for nothing else but the emancii)ation of women." ■'And you will aid and abet her in her folly.-*" the father asked, looking up sharply at him. ** You will persist in this evil course? You will face the world and openly defy morality.-* " "I will not counsel the woman I most love and admire to purchase her own ease by prov- ing false to her convictions," Alan answered stoutly. Dr. Merrick Grazed at the watch on his table once more. Then he rose and rang the bell. *' I'atient here.-*" he asked curtly, "Show him in then at once. And, Napper, if Mr. Alan Merrick ever calls again, will you tell him I 'm out.-* — and your mistress as well, and all the young ladies. " He turned coldly to Alan. "I must guard your mother and sisters at least," he said in a chilly voice, "from the contamina- tion of this woman's opinions." Alan bowed without a word, and left the room. He never again saw the face of his father. THE WOMAN WHO DID. 97 IX. Alan Merrick strode from his father's door that day stun- with a burning sense of uron- and injustice. More than ever before in his life he realized to himself the abject hollovvness of that conventional code which masquerades in our midst as a system of morals. If he had continued to "live single" as we hypocritically phrase it, and so helped by one unit to spread the festering social canker of prostitution, on which as basis, like some median-al castle on its foul dungeon vaults, the entire superstruc- ture of our outwardly decent modern society is reared, his father no doubt would have shrugged his shoulders and blinked his cold eyes, "and commended the wise young man for abstaining from marriage till his means could permit him to keep a wife of his own class in the way she was accustomed to. The wretched victims of that vile system might die unseen and unpitied in some hideous back slum, without touching one chord of remorse or regret in Dr. Merr"ick's nature. He was steeled against their sufferin-. OS Tlir, V.'OMAN WHO Din. Or ap^ain, if Alan had sold his virility for ^okl to S0111C rich heiress of his set, like ICthel Water- ton — had bartered Ids freedom to be lier wedded paramour in a loveless marria,L!;e, liis father would not ordy have i;ladly aeciuiesced, but would have conj^^ratulated h's son on his luck and his prudence. Yet, because Alan had chosen rather to form a blameless union of pure affection with a woman who was in every way his moral and mental superior, but in desjiite of the con- ventional ban of society, Dr. Merrick had cast him off as an open reprobate. And why.^^ Simply because that union was unsanctioned by the exponents of a law they despised, and unblessed by the priests of a creed they rejected. Alan saw at once it is not the intrinsic moral value of an act such people think about, but the li^ht in which it " regarded by a selfish society. Unchastity, it has been well said, is union without love; and Alan would have none of it. He went back to Ilerminia more than ever convinced of that spotless woman's moral supe- riority to every one else he had ever met with. She sat, a lonely soul, enthroned amid the halo of her own perfect purity. To Alan, she seemed like one of those early Italian Madonnas, lost in a glory of light that surrountls and half hides them. He reverenced her far too much to tell if I' THE WOMAN WHO DID. 99 her all that had happened. How could he wound those sweet ears with his father's eoarsc epithets ? They took the club train that afternoon to Paris. There they slept the ni,i;ht in a fusty hotel near the Gare du Nord, and went on in the morning by the daylii^ht express to Switzer- land. At Lucerne and Milan they broke the journey once more. Ilerniinia had never yet gone further afield from ICngland than I'aris; and this first glimpse of a wider world was intensely interesting to her. Who can heli) being pleased, indeed, with that wonderful St. Gothard — the crystal green Reuss shattering itself in white s})ray into emerald pools by the side of the railway; Wasen church perched high upon its solitary hilltop; the liiaschina ravine, the cleft rocks of Faido, the serpen- tine twists and turns of the ramping line as it mounts or descends its spiral zigzags.^ Dewy Alpine pasture, tossed masses of land- slip, white narcissus on the banks, snowy peaks in the background — all alike were fresh visions of delight to Herminia; and she drank it all in with the pure childish joy of a poetic nature. It was the Switzerland of her dreams, reinforced and complemented by unsuspected detail. One trouble alone disturbed her peace of mind upon that delightful journey. Alan lOO THE WOMAN WHO DID. li entered their names at all the hotels where tiiey stopped as "Mr. and Mrs. Alan Merriek of London." That deeeption, as Ilerminia held it, cost her many qualms of conscience; but Alan, with masculine common-sense, was firm upon the point that no other description was practically possible; and Herminia yielded with a sigh to his greater worldly wisdom. She had yet to learn the lesson which sooner or later comes home to all the small minority who care a pin about righteousness, that in a world like our own, it is impossible for the righteous always to act consistently up to their most sacred convictions. At Milan, they stopped long enough to snatch a glimpse of the cathedral, and to take a hasty walk through the pictured glories of the Brera. A vague suspicion began to cross Herminia's mind, as she gazed at the girlish Madonna of th(i Sposalizio, tiiat perhaps she was n't quite as well adapted to love Italy as Switzerland. Na- ture she understood ; was art yet a closed book to her.!* If so, she would be sorry; for Alan, in whom the artistic sense was largely developed, loved his Italy dearly; and it would be a real cause of regret to her if she fell short in any way of Alan's expectations Moreover, at tad/c d hCytc that eveniiig, a slight episode occurred which roused to the full once more poor Her- la THE WOMAN WHO DID. ror minia's tender conscience. Talk had somehow turned on Shelley's Italian wanderino-s ; and a benevolent-lookin- cler-yman opposite, with that vacantly well-meanin- smile, peculiar to a certam type of country rector, was apolo-nV., uvr in what he took to he a broad and -enerous spirit of divine toleration for the -reat moral teacher's supposed lapses from the normal rule of right living. Much, the benevolent-lookin- gentleman opined,with beaming spectacles mus't be forgiven to men of genius. Their tempta- tions no doubt are far keener than with must of us. An eager imagination — a vivid sense ot beauty — quick readiness to be moved by the sight of physical or moral loveliness ~ tl->se were palliations, the old clergyman held of much that seemed wrong and contradictory to our eyes in the lives of so many great men and women. At sound of such immoral and unworthv teaching, Herminia's ardent soul rose up in revolt within her. "Oh, no," she cried eagerly leaning across the table as she spoke. *' I can't allow that plea. It's degrading to Shelley, and to all true appreciation of the duties of genius. Not less but more than most of us is the genius bound to act up with all his Uiight to the highest moral law, to be the prophet a"nd interpreter of the highest moral excellence. 102 THE WOMAN WHO DTD. To whom much is given, of him much shall b'^ required. Just because the man or woman of genius stands raised on a pedestal so far above the mass have we the right to expect that he or she should point us the way, should go before us as pioneer, should be more careful of the truth, more disdainful of the wrong, down to the smallest particular, than the ordinary per- son. There are poor souls born into this world so petty and narrow and wanting in originality that one can only expect them to tread the beaten track, be it ever so cruel and wicked and mistaken. But from a Shelley or a George Eliot, we expect greater things, and we have a right to expect them. That 's why I can never quite for- give George Eliot — who knew the truth, and found freedom for herself, and practised it in her life — for upholding in her books the con- ventional lies, the conventional prejudices; and that 's why I can never admire Shelley enough, who, in an age of slavery, refused to abjure or to deny his freedom, but acted unto death to the full height of his princii)les." The beu'.^volent-looking clergyman gazed aghast at Herminia. Then he turned slowly to Alan. "Your wife," he said in a mild and terrified voice, "is a very advanced lady." Herminia lonired to blurt out the whole simple truth. "I :' n not his wife. I am not. THE WOMAN WHO DID. 103 and could never be wife or slave to any man. This is a very dear friend, and he and I arc travelling as friends together." But a warning glance from Alan made her hold her peace with difficulty and acquiesce as best she might in the virtual deception. Still, the incident went to her heart, and made her more anxious than ever to declare her convictions and her practi- cal obedience to them openly before the world. She remembered, oh, so well one of her father's sermons that had vividly imj)ressed her in the dear old days at Dunwich Cathedral. It was preached upon the text, "Come ye out and be ye separate." From Milan they went on direct to Florence. Alan had decided to take rooms for the summer at Perugia, and there to see Herminia safely through her maternal troubles. Pie loved Peru- gia, he said; it was cool and high-perched; and then, too, it was such a capital place for sketch- ing. Besides, he was anxious to complete his studies of the early Umbrian painters. But they must have just one week at IHorence together before they went up among the hills. Florence was the place for a beginner to find out what Italian art was aiming at. You got it there in its full logical development — every phase, step by step, in organic unity; while elsewhere you saw but stages and jumps and ii; 104 THE WOMAN WHO DID. results, interrupted here and there by disturb- inilk-white bullocks of Clitumnus failed amid so much dust to arouse her enthusiasm. She would have been better pleased just then with a yellow English pi imrose. They clambered down the terraced ravines sometimes, a day or two later, to arid banks by a dry torrent's bed where Italian primroses really grew, interspersed with tall grape-hya- cinths, and scented violets, and glossy cleft leaves of winter aconite. But even the prim- Ifj THE WOMAN WHO DTD. 119 roses were not the same thinj; to Herminia as those she used to .leather on the dewy slopes of the Redlands; they were so chy and tlust- grimed, and the path by the torrent's side was so distasteful and unsavory, l^are white boui;hs of twisted fig-trees depressed her. l^csides, these hills were steep, and Herminia felt the climbing. Nothing in city or suburbs attracted her soul. Etruscan Volumnii, each lolling in white travertine on the sculptured lid of his own sarcophagus urn, and all duly ranged in the twilight of their tomb at their spectral ban- quct, stirred her heart but feebly. St. Francis, Santa Chiara, fell flat on her English fancy. But as for Alan, he revelled all day long in his native element. lie sketched every morning, among the huddljd, strangled lanes; sketched churches and monasteries, and portals of jia- lazzi; sketched mountains clear-cut in that pellucid air; till Herminia wondered how he could sit so long in the broiling sun or keen wind on those bare hillsides, or on broken brick parapets in those noisome byways. Ihit your born sketcher is oblivious of all on earth save his chosen art; and Alan was essentially a painter in fibre, diverted by pure circumstance into a Chancery practice. The very pictures in the gallery failed to interest Herminia, she knew not why. Alan Hi I20 THE WOMAN WHO DID. 111^ III M\\\ could n't rouse hc^ to enthusiasm over his beloved Buonfigli. Those naive flaxen-haired angels, with sweetly parted lips, and baskets of red roses in their delicate hands, own sisters though they were to the girlish Lippis she had so admired at Florence, moved her heart but faintly. Try as she might to like them, she responded to nothing Perugian in any way. At the end of a week or two, however, Alan began to complain of constant headache He was looking very well, but grew uneasy and restless. Herminia advised him to give up sketching for a while, those small streets were so close; and he promised to yield to her wishes in the matter. Yet he grew worse next day, so that Herminia, much alarmed, called in an Italian doctor. Perugia boasted no luiglish one. The Italian felt his pulse, and listened to his symptoms. "The signore came here from Florence .-'" he asked. "From Plorence," Herminia assented, with a sudder sinking. The doctor protruded his lower lip. "This is typhoid fever," he said after a pause. "A very bad type. It has been assuming such a form this winter at Plorence." He spoke the plain truth. Twenty-one days before in his bedroom at the hotel in Florence, Alan had drunk a single glass of water from the THE WOMAN WHO DID. 121 polluted springs that supply in part the Tuscan metropolis. For twent>-one days those victo- rious microbes had brooded in silence in his poi- soned arteries. At the end of that time, they swarmed and declared themselves. He was ill with an aggravated form of the most deadly disease that still stalks unchecked through unsanitated Europe. Herminia's alarm was painful. Alan grew rapidly worse. In two days he was so ilTthat she thought it her duty to telegraph at once to Dr. Merrick, in London : "Alan's life in danger. Serious attack of Florentine typhoid. ItaHan doctor despairs of his life. May not last till to-morrow. — Hermixia Barton." Later on in the day came a telegram in reply; it was addressed to Alan: ''Am on my way out by through train to attend you. ]^ut as a mat- ter of duty, marry the girl at once, and legiti- matize your child while the chance remains to you." It was kindly meant in its way. It was a message of love, of forgiveness, of generosity, such as Herminia would hardly have expected from so stern a man as Alan had always repre- sented his father to be to her. But at moments of unexpected danger angry feelings between father and son are often forgotten, and blood unexpectedly proves itself thicker than water. 122 THE WOMAN WHO DID. I ill '^ct even so licrminia couldn't iK'ar tC) show the telegram to Alan. She feared lest in this extremity, his mind weakened l)y disease, he mi^ht wish to take his fatlicr's advice, and prove untrue to tlieir common principles. In that case, woman that she was, she hardly knew how she could resist what mii^ht be only too probably his dyini; wishes. Still, she nerved herself for this trial of faitli, and went through with it bravely. Alan, thou^di sinking, was still conscious at moments; in one such interval, with nn effort to be calm, she showed him his father's telegram. Tears rose into his eyes. "I didn't ex})ect him to come," he said. "This is all very good of him." Then, after a moment, he added, "Would you wijsli me in this extremity, Hermy, to do as he advises.''" Herminia bent over him with fierce tears on her eyelids. "O Alan darling," she cried, "you mustn't die! You mustn't leave me: What could I do without you.-' oh, my darling, my darling! Hut don't think of me now. Don't think of the dear baby. I couldn't bear to disturb you even by showing you the tele- gram. For your sake, Alan, I '11 be calm, — I '11 be calm. But oh, not for worlds, — not for worlds, — even so, w^ould 1 turn m\' back on the principles we would both risk our lives for!" Alan smiled a faint smile. "Mermy," ho THE VVOMAX WHO DID. 123 said slowly, ''I love you all the more for it. You 're as brave as a lion. Oh, how much I have learned from you ! " All that niL,dit and next day Ilerminia watched by his bedside. Now and a-ain he was conscious. lUit for the most part^ he lay still, in a comatose condition, with eyes half closed, the whites showini,^ through the lids, neither muvin- nor speaking. All the time he grew worse steadily. As she sat by his bed- side, Herminia began to realize the utter loneli- ness of her position. That Alan might die was the one element in the situation she had never even dreamt of. No wife culd l.,ve her hus- band with more perfect devotion than Ilerminia loved Alan. She hung upon every breath with unspeakable suspense and unutterable affection. But the Italian doctor held out little hope of a rally. Herminia sat there, fixed to the spot, a white marble statue. Late next evening Dr. Merrick reached Perugia. He drove straight from the station to the dingy flat in the morose palazzo. At the door of his son's room, Herminia met him, clad from head to foot in white, as she had sat by the bedside. Tears blinded her eyes; her face was wan; her mien terrildy haggard.' "And my son.?" the Doctor aske^c?, with a hushed breath of terror. nil m !<- I J 124 THE WOMAN WHO DID. " He died half an hour ago," Herminia gasped out with an effort. "]5ut he married you before he died?" the father cried, in a tone of profound emotion. "He did justice to his child? — he repaired his evil?" "He did not," Herminia answered, in a scarcely audible voice. "He was stanch to the end to his lifelong principles." "Why not?" the father asked, staggering. "Did he see my telegram?" "Yes," Herminia answered, numb with grief, yet too proud to prevaricate. " Ikit 1 advised him to stand firm ; and he abode by my decision." The father waved her aside with his hands imperiously. "Then I have done with you," he exclaimed. " I am sorry to seem harsh to you at such a moment. But it is your own doing. You leave me no choice. You have no right any longer in my son's apartments." THE WOMAN WHO DID. 135 XII. No position in life is more terrible to face than that of the widowed mother left alone in the world with her unborn baby. Wiien the child IS her first one, —when, besides the natural horror and agony of the situation, she has also to confront the unknown dan-ers of that new and dreaded experience, - her pli^dit is still more pitiable. But when the widowed mother IS one who has never been a wife,- when in addi- tion to all these pan-s of bereavement and fear she has further to face the contempt and hos^ ihty of a sneering world, as Ilerminia had to tace It, - then, indeed, her lot becomes well- nigh insupportable; it is almost more than hu- man nature can bear up against. So Herminia ound It. She might have died of grief and lonehness then and there, had it not been for the sudden and unexpected rousing of her spirit of opposition by Dr. Merrick's words. That crud speech gave her the will and the power to live It saved her from madness. She drew herself up at once with a.; injured woman's pride and 126 THE WOMAN WHO DID. facinf:^ her dead Alan's father with a quick access of cnerp;y, — "You are wrongs" she said, stilling her heart with one hand. " Tiiese rooms are mine, -my own, not dear Alan's. I eni;a.i;ed them myself, for my own use, and in my own name, as Ilerminia Barton. \'<)U can stay here if you wish. I will not imitate your cruelty l)y re- fusinj^^ you access t(j them; but if you remain here, you must treat me at least with the re- spect that belongs to my great sorrow, and with the cinirtesy due to an I'^.nglish lady." Her words half cowed him. He subsided at once. In silence he stei)i)ed over to his dead son's bedside. Mechanically, almost uncon- sciously, Ilerminia went on with the needful })rep- arations for Alan's funeral. Her grief was so in- tense that she bore up as if stunned ; she did what was e\|)ected of her without thinking or feeling it. Dr. Merrick stopped on at Perugia till his son was buried. He was frigidly polite mean- while to Ilerminia. Deeply a. he differed from her, the dignity and prid*. with which she had answered his first insult impressed him with a certain sense of respect for her character, and made him feel at least he could not be rude to her with impunity. He remained at the hotel, and superintended the arrangements for his son's funeral- As soon as that was over, THE WOMAN WHO mi). 127 i and PIcrminia had seen the coffin lowered into the <,^rave of all her hoi)es, save one, she re- turnee' to her rooms alone, — mcjre utterly alone than she had ever iniaL;ined any human bein<'- could feel in a citytul of fellow-creatures. She must shape her i)ath now for herself without Alan's aid, without Alan's advice. And her bitterest enemies in life, she felt sure, W(Hild henceforth be those of Alan's house- hold. Vet, lonely as she was, she determined from the first moment no course was left open for her save to remain at I'erugia. She couldn't go away so soon from the spot where Alan was laid, —from all that remained to her now of Alan. Except his unborn baby, —the baby that was half hi.s, half hers, —the baby predes- tined to regenerate humanity. Oh, how she longed to fonrlle it! livery arrangement had been made in Perugia for the baby's advent; she would stand by those arrangements still, in her shuttered room, partly because she could n't tear herself away from Alan's grave; partly because she had no heart left to make the necessary arrangements elsewhere; but partly also because she wished yXlan's baby to be born near Alan's side, where she could present it after birth at its father's last resting-place. It was a fanciful wish, she knew, based ui)on 121 THE WOMAN WHO DID. :i 1 ideas ancc she had \onui since discard-jd; but these StKJ sentiments ec ho 1 owj: in our hearts thev die hard witli us all, and most hard with n -y women. She would stop on at Perugia, and die i giving birth to Alan's baby; or else live to be father and mother in one to it. So she stopped and waited ; waited in tremu« lous fear, half longing for death, half eager not to leave that sacred baby an orphan. It would be Alan's baby, and might grow in time to be the world's true savior. For, now that Alan was dead, no hope on earth seemed too great to cherish for Alan's child within her. And oh, that it might be a girl, to take up the task she herself had failed in! The day after the funeral. Dr. Merrick called in for the last time at her lodgings. He brought in his hand a legal dooking paper, which he had found in searching among Alan's effects, for he had carried them off to his hotel, leaving not even a memento of her ill-starred love to Herminia. "This may interest you," he said dryly. "You will see at once it is in my son's handwriting." llerminia glanced over it with a burning face. It was a will in her favor, leaving absolutely everything of which he died possessed "to my beloved friend, llermiina Harton." THE WOMAN WOO DID. ,39 Herminia had hanlly the means to keep her- self ahve till her bal,y was born; but in those first fierce hours of ineffable bereavement what question of money could interest her in any way? She stared at it, stupefied. It only ple^ased her to think Alan had not forgotten her I he sordid moneyed class of Kn-land will haggle over bequests and settlements and n Pcri,g,a. Sho stopped „n, mucn.lod by any save unknown Italians whose ton.^^ne she hardly spoke, and unchecred by a friendly voice at the deepest n,on,ent of trouble in a woman's his- tory Often for hours to,=,.ether she sat alone n the cathedral, ,azin., up at a certain mild- featured Madonna, enshrined above an altar. Ihe unwedded wulow seemed to Kain some cont- ort from the pitying face of the nuiiden mother Lvery day while still she could, she walked out along the shadeless suburban road to Alan's Srave m the parched and crowded cemetery Women tru.lgins along with crammed creels ,,n the.r backs turned round to stare at her. W'hen towa'i-ds s" 'r^"-^''^' «he sat at her window owaul. San Luca and gazed at it. There lay the only fr.end she possessed in I'erugia, per naixs in the universe. The dreadcl day arrivey with a lumani ty- to re< :cnerate r w^ 134 THE WOMAN WHO DID. So warm! So small! Alan's soul and her own, mysteriously blended. Still, even so, she couldn't find it in her heart to give any joyous name to dead Alan's child. Dolores she called it, at Alan's grave. In sorrow had she borne it; its true name was Dolores. y « THE WOMAN WHO DID. 135 XIII. It was a changed London to which Herniinia returned. She was homeless, penniless, friend- less. Above all she was dcciasscc. The world that had known her now knew her no more. Women who had smothered' her with their Judas kisses passed her by in their victorias with a stony stare. Even men pretended to be looking the other way, or crossed the street t(» avoid the necessity for recognizing her. "So awkward to be mixed up with such a scandal! " She hardly knew as yet herself how much her world was changed indeed; for had she not come back to it, the mother of an illegitimate daughter.? But she began to suspect it the very first day when she arrived at Charing Cross, clad in a plain black dress, with her^xaby at her bosom. Her fu-st task was to hnd rooms- her next to find a livelihood. lu'en the first involved no small relapse from the purity of her principles. After long hours of vain hunt- ing, she found at last she could only -et lothr. ■f :, i Hi! 136 THE WOMAN WHO DID. 1| III ! inc;s for herself and Alan's child by tcllin.c:; a virtual lie, aL;ainst which her soul revolted. She was forced to describe herself as Mrs. Barton; she must allow her landlady to sup- pose she was really a widow. Woe unto you, scribes and hypocrites! in all Christian Lon- don Miss l^arton and her baby could never have found a "respectable" room in which to lay their heads. So she yielded to the inev- itable, and took iwo tiny attics in a small street off the lulgware Road at a moderate rental. To live alone in a cottage as of yore would have been impossible now she had a baby of her own to tend, besides earning her livelihood; she fell back regretfully on the lesser evil of lodgings. To earn her livelihood was a hard task, though Herminia's indomitable energy rode down all obstacles. Teaching, of course, was now quite out of the question; no English parent could intrust the education of his daughters to the hands of a woman who has dared and suffered much, for conscience' sake, in the cause of freedom for herself and her sisters. But even before llerminia went away to Perugia, she had acquired some small journalistic connection; and now, in her hour of need, she found not a few of the journalistic leaders by no means unwilling to sympathize and fraternize with THE \V()>rAN WHO DH). 137 her. To be sure, they did n't ask the free wo- man to their homes, nor invite her to meet their own women: — even an enlightened journalist must draw a line somewhere in the matter of society; but they understood and appreciated the sincerity of her motives, and did what they could to find empluyment and salary for her. Herminia was an honest and conscientious worker; she knew much about many thinL;s; and nature had gifted her with the instinct?VL' power of writing clearly and unaffectedly the Knglish language. So she got on with editors. Who could resist, indeed, the pathetic charm of that girlish figure, simply clad in unobtrusive black, and sanctified in every feature of the shrinking face by the beauty of sorrow? Not the men who stand at the head of the one Knglisu profession which more than all others has es- caped the leprous taint of that national moral blight that calls itself ''respectability." In a slow and tentative way, then. ITerminia crept back into unrecognizecl recognition. It was ail she needed. Companionship she liked • she hated society. That mart was odious to' her where women barter their bodies for a title, a carriage, a i)lace at the head of some rich man's table. Bohemia sufficed her. Her ter- rible widowhood, too, was rondered less terrible to her by the care of her little one. I5abblin- 138 THE WOMAN WHO DID. ill lips, pattering feet, made heaven in her attic. Every good woman is l)y nature a mother, and finds best in maternity her social and moral salvation. She shall be saved in child-bearing. Ilerminia was far removed indeed from that blat- ant and decadent sect of " advanced women " who talk as though motherhood were a disgrace and a burden, instead of being, as it is, the full realization of woman's faculties, the natural outlet for woman's wealth of emotion. She knew that to be a mother is the best privilege of her sex, a privilege of which unholy man- made institutions now consi)ire to deprive half the finest and noblest women in our civilized com munities. Widowed as she was, she still pitied the unhappy beings doomed to the cramped life and dwarfed heart of the old maid ; pitied them as sincerely as she despised those unhealthy souls who would make of celibacy, wedded or un- wedded, a sort of anti-natural religion for women. Alan's death, however, had left Herminia's ship rudderless. Her mission had failed. That she acknowledired herself. She lived now for Dolores. The child to whom she had given the noble birthright of libertv was destined from her cradle to the apostolate of women. Alone of her sex, she would start in life eman- cipated. While others must say, " W^ith a great sum obtained I this freedom," Dolores could HE WOMAN' WHO DIP. 139 answer with Paul, " JUit I was free born. " That was no mean herita"-e. Gradually llerminia got work to her mind- work enough to support her in the modest way that sufficed her small wants .r herself and her baby. In London, given time enough, you can live down anything, perhaps even the unspeak- able sin of having struck a righteous blow in the interest of women. And day by day as months and years went on, Herminia felt 'she was living down the disgrace of having obeyed an enlightened conscience. She even found mends. Dear old Miss Smith-Waters used to creep round by night, like Nicodemus- respect- ability would not have allowed her to perform that Christian act in open daylight,-and sit for an hour or tw.. with her dear misguided Ilcrminia. Miss Smith-Waters prayed nightly for Merminia's ''conversion," yet not without an uncomfortable suspidnn,, after all, that Her- minia had very little indeed to be "converted" from. Other people also got to know her bv degrees; an editor's wife ; a kind literary host- ess; some socialistic ladies who liked to be advanced;" a friendly family or two of the Bohemian literary or artistic pattern. Amon:^ them J ferminia learned to be as happy in time as she could ever again be, now she had lost her Alan. She was Mrs. Ihrton to them all; that 140 THK WOMAN' WHO DTD. lie she found it practieally impossible to fi^ht aLrainst. I'^vcn tlie J^ohcmians refused to let their children ask after Aliss J^arton's baby. So wrapt in vile f.ilsehuods and conventions are we. So far have we travelled from the pristine realities of truth anc| purity. We lie to our children — in the interests of morality. After a time, in the intervals between doing her journalistic work and nursinu; Alan's baby, Herminia f(JLind leisure to write a novel. It was seriously meant, of course, but still it was a novel. That is every woman's native idea of literature. It reflects the relatively larger part which the social life plays in the existence of women. If a man tells you he wants to write a book, nine times out of ten he means a treatise or argument on some subject that interests him. I^^ven the men who take in the end to writing novels have generally begun with other aims and other aspirations, and have only fallen back upon the art of fiction in the last resort as a means of livelihood. But when a woman tells you she wants to write a book, nine times out of ten she means she wants to write a novel. For that task nature has most often endowed her richly. Her quicker intuitions, her keener interest in social life, her deeper insight into the passing play of emotions and of motives, enable her to paint well the complex interrela- Tiin woMAx \vi[(-i run. 141 tions of cvcry.;h it remains in other ways an interesting^ and ivy-clad mediaeval relic. "Let us be-in by admittin<;," said the Spectatorial scribe, "that Miss Monta-ue's book" (she had j)ublished it under a pseu- donym) "is a work of ^^enius. Much as we dislike its whole tone, and still more its con- clusions, the -^leam of pure genius shines torlh umleniable on every page of it. Whoever takes it up must read on against his will till he has finished the last line of this terrible tragedy; a hateful fascination seems to hold and compel him. Its very purity makes it dangerous. The book is mistaken; the book is poisonous; the book is morbid; the book is calculated to (h) irremediable mischief ; bur in spite of all that, the book is a book of undeniable and sadly mis- placed genius." If he had said no more, llerminia would have been amply satisfied. To be called morbid by the "Spectator " is a sufficient j)roof that you have hit at least the right tack in morals. And to be accused of genius as well was indeed a triumph. No wonder llerminia went home to her lonely attic that night justifiably elated. She fancied after this her book must make a hit. It might be binned and reviled, but at ir 144 THE WOMAN WHO DID. any rate it was now srifc frum the ignominy of oblivion. Alas, how little she knew of the mysteries of the book-market! As little as all the rest of us. Day after day, from that afternoon forth, she watched in vain for succeeding notices. Not a single other pa[)er in England reviewed her. At the libraries, her romancj was never so much as asked for. And the reason for these phenomena is not far to seek by those who know the ways of the liritish public. r\.)r her novel was earnestly and sincerely written; it breathed a moral air, therefore it was voted dull ; therefore nobody cared for it. The " Spec- tator " had noticed it because of its manifest earnestness and sincerity ; for though the " Spec- tator " is always on the side of the lie and the wrong, it is earnest and sincere, and has a gen- uine sympathy for earnestness and sincerity, even on the side of truth and righteousness. N(~)body else even looked at it. People said to themselves, "This book seems to be a book with a teaching not thoroughly banal, like the novels- with-a-purpose after which we flock; so we'll give it a wide berth." And they shunned it accordingly. That was the end of Ilerminia Barton's lit- erary aspirations. She had given the people of her best, and the people rejected it. Now she THE WOMAN WHO DID. H5 gave them of her most mediocre; the nearest to their own level of thou-ht and feeiin.-- to which her hand couhl reduce itself. And'the people accepted it. The rest of her lite was hack-work; by that, she could at least earn a livin- for Dolores. Her *' Anti-one, for the Use of Ladies' Schools" still holds its own at Girton and Somerville. 10 146 THE WOMAN WHO DID. XIV. I no not propose to dwell at any lcnj;lh upon the next ten uv twelve years of llerniinia l^ar- ton's life. An episode or two must suffice; and those few told brietiy. She saw nothini: oi her family. Relations had lon^j; been strained between them; now they were ruptured. To the rest of the liartons, she was even as one dead; the sister and dauL;hter's name was never pronounced arnon*; them. lUit once, when little I^olores was about five years old, I Term in ia happened to })ass a church door in Marylebone, where a red-lettered j^lacard announced in bold type that the Very Reverend the Dean of Dunwich would preach there on Sunday. It flashed across her mind that this was Sunday mornin.t;. An overpowerini; desire to look on her father's face once more — she had never seen her mother's — impelled ller- minia to enter those unwonted portals. The Dean was in the judpit. He looked stately and dii^nified in his lon^ white hair, a noticeable man, tall and erect to the last, like a storm- THE WOMAN WHO Dm. M7 beaten pine; in spite of iiis threescore years and ten, his clear-cut face shone thou-htful, and striking, and earnest as ever. lie was preach- ing from the text, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling." Ami he preached, as he always did, eloquently. His river of speech flowed high between banks out of sight of the multitude. There was such perfect sincerity, such moral elevation in all he said, that Herminia felt acutely, as she had often felt before, the close likeness of fibre which united her to him, in spite of extreme superficial differences of belief and action. She felt it so much that when the sermon was over she waited at the vestry door for her father to emerge. She couldn't let him go away without making at least an effort to speak with him. When the Dean came out, a gentle smile still playing upon his intellectual face, — f„r he was one of the few parsons who manage in their old age to look neither sordid nor inane, —he .saw standing by the vestry door a woman in a plain black dres.s, like a widow of the people. She held by the hand n curly haired little girl of singularly calm and innocent expression." The woman's dark hair waved gracefully on her high forehead, and caught his attention. Her eyes were subtly sweet, her mouth full of pathos. r48 IIIE WOMAN WHO DID. Slic pressed forward to speak to him; the Dean, all beni-nity, bent his head to listen. "r'ather!" Uerminia eried, looking up at him. The Dean started back. The woman who thus addressed him was barely twenty-eight, she might well have been forty; grief and hard life had made her old before her time. Her face was haggard. Beautiful as she still was, it was the beauty of a broken heart, of a Mater Dolorosa, not the roundfaced beauty of the fresh young girl who had gone forth rejoicing some ten years earlier from the Deanery at Dunwich to the lecture-rooms at Girton. For a moment the Dean stared hard at her. Then with a burst of recognition he uttered aghast the one word "Herminia!" "l'\ather, " Uerminia answered, in a tremu- lous voice, " I have fought a good fight ; I have pressed toward the mark for the prize of a high calling. And when I heard you preach, I felt just this once, let come what come might, I must step forth to tell you so." The Dean gazed at her with melting eyes. J.ove and pity beamed strong in them. ** Have you come to re])ent, my child.'*" he asked, with solemn insistence. "Father," Herminia made answer, lingering lovingly on the word, " I have nothing to rej)ent THE WOMAN" WHO DID. 149 of. I have striven hard to do well, and have earned scant praise for it. I^ut I come to ask to-day for one grasp of your hand, one word of your blessing. Father, father, kiss me!" The old man drew himself u[) to his full height, with his silvery hair round his face. Tears started to his eyes; his voice faltered. But he repressed himself sternly. "No, no, my child," he answered. " l\Ty poor old heart bleeds for you. ]^ut not till you come with full proofs of penitence in your hands can I ever receive you. I have prayed for you without ceasing. God grant you may repent. Till then, I command you, keej) far away from me, and from your untainted sisters." The child felt her mother's hand tremble quivering in her own, as she led her from the church; but never a word did Ilerminia say, lest her heart should break with it. As soon as she was outside, little Dolly looked up at her. (It had dwindled from Dolores to Dolly in real life by this time; years bring these mitigations of our first fierce outbursts.) "Who was that grand old gentleman.?" the child asked, in an awe-f cruck voice. And Herminia, clasping her daughter to her breast, answered with a stifled sob, "That was your grandpa, Dolly; that was my father mv father." ' ^ jpWpi 150 THE WOMAN WHO DID. The child put no more questions just then as is the wont of children; but she treasured up the incident for long in her heart, wondering much to herself why, if her grandpa was so grand an old gentleman, she and her mamma should have to live by themselves in such scrubby little lodgings. Also, why her grand- pa, who looked so kind, should refuse so severely to kiss her mammy. It was the beginning of many doubts and questionings to Dolores. A year later, the Dean died suddenly. People said he might have risen to be a bishop in his time, if it hadn't been for that unfortunate episode about his daughter and young Merrick. Herminia was only once mentioned in his will; and even then merely to implore the divine forgiveness for her. She wept over that sadly. She did n't want the girls' money, she was better able to take care of herself than l^lsieand Ermyntrude; but it cut her to the quick that her father should have quitted the world at last without one word of reconciliation. However, she went on working j^lacidly at her hack-work, and living for little Dolly. Mer one wish now was to make Dolly press toward the mark for the i)rize of the high calling she herself by mere accident had missed so nar- rowly. Her own life was done; Alan's death ! I THE WOMAN WHO DH^. 151 had made her task impossible; but if Dolly could fill her plaee for the sake of humanity, • she would not re< dh). Sir Anthony started. Was this a trap to entangle him? lie was born suspicious, and he feared tliat woman. Hut lie looked into Dolly's blue eyes of wonder, and all doubt iled from him. Was it blood.-* was it instinct.'' was it unconscious nature .'' At any rate, the child seemed to melt the ^grandfather's heart as if by niaL;ic. I-oiij.; years after, when the due time came, Dolly remembered that melting. To the prcjfound amazement of the footman, who stood with the carriage-door ready open in his hand, the old man bent down and kissed the child's red lips. "God bless you, my dear!" he murmured, with unwonted tenderness to his son's daughter. Then he took out his purse, and drew from it a whole gold sovereign. "That's for you, my child," he said, fondling the pretty golden curls. "Take it home, and tell your mammy an old man in the street gave it to you." Ikit the coachman observed to the footman, as they drove on together to the next noble patient's, "You may take your oath on it, Mr. W^ells, that little 'un there was Mr. Alan's love-child!" Dolly had never held so much money in her hand before; she ran home, clutching it tight, and burst in upon Herminia with the startling news that Sir Anthony Merrick, a very grand Tin: \V(»\i.\\ WHO did. '55 gcntlcnian in a very fine carriaL;o, h:i(l -iven a gold piece to her. CjoKI pieces were rare in the cahn little attic, but Ilerminia caii-ht her chiM up with a cry of terror; and that very same evenini;, she changed the tainted sovereign with Dolly tor another one, and sent Sir Anthony's back in an envelope without a word to llarley Street. The chiKl who was born to tree halt the hunian race from a?ons of slavery must be kept from all contagion of man's gold and man's briberv. Yet Dolly never forgot the grand gentleman's name, though she hadn't the least idea why ho gave that yellow coin to her. Out of this small episode, however, grew Herminia's great tenii)tation. For Sir Anthony, being a man tenacious of his purpose, went home that day full of re- lenting thoughts about that girl Dolores. Iler golden hair had sunk deep into his heart. She was Alan's own child, after all; she had Alan's blue eyes; and in a world where your daughters go off and marry men you don't like, while your sons turn out badly, and don't marry at all to vex you, it 's something to have some fresh young life of your blood to break in upon your chilly old age and cheer you. So the great doctor called a few days later at Herminia's lodgings, and having first ascertained that Her- itl , fli I 156 THE WOMAN WHO DID. minia herself was out, had five minutes' conver- sation alone with her landlady. 'J'here were times, no doubt, when IVIrs. I'ar- ton was ill? The landlady with the caution of her class, admitted that mi«;ht be so. And times no doubt when Mrs. l^arton was for the moment in arrears with her rent.? The land- lady, fjjood loyal soul, demurred to that sui(.L;es- tion ; she knit her brows and hesitated. Sir /Vnthony hastened to set her mind at rest. His intentions were most friendly. He wished to keep a watch, — a ([uiet, well-meaning, unsus- pected watch, — over Mrs. Barton's necessities. He desired, in point of fact^ if need were, to relieve them. Mrs. l^arton was distantly con- nected with relations of his own; and his notion was that without seemini; to hel|) her in obtru- sive ways, he would like to make sure Mrs. ]?arton irot into no serious difficulties. Would the landlady be so «;ood — a half sovereign glided into that subservient palm — as to let Sir Anthony know if she ever had reason to suspect a very serious strain was bein*^^ jnit on Mrs. liarton's resources.? The landlady, droppini; the modern apology for a courtesy, jiromised wilh effusion under pres- sure of hard cash, to accede to Sir Anthony's benevolent wishes. The more so as she 'd do anything to serve clear Mrs. Barton, who was 1 TIIK WOMAN WHO DID. 157 always in cvcrythi;:i; a perfect lady, most in- dependent, in faet ; (Uie ni the kind as would n't be beholden to anvbodv for a fartiiinif. Some months passed away before the land- lady had cause to report to Sir Anthony. Hut during the worst dej)ths of the next London winter, wlien gray fog gathered thick in tiic purlieus of Marylebone, antl shivering gusts groaned at the street corners, i>)or little Dolly caught whoojiing-cough brully. On top of the whooping-cough came an attack of bronchitis; and on top of the bronchitis a serious throat trouble. Herminia sat uj) nigjit after night, nursing her child, and neglecting the work on which both dej^ended for su])sistence. Week by week things grew worse and worse; and Sir Anthony, kept duly informed by the landlady, waited and watched, and bided his time in siltmcc. At last the case became desperate. Herminia had no money left to {)ay her bill or buy food, and one string to her bow after another broke do^vn in journalism. ller |)laco as the weekly lady's-letter writer to an illus- trated paper passed on to a substitute; blank poverty stared her in th<'face, n.evitable. When it came to pawning the ly}M>writi'r, as the land- lady reported, Sir Anthony »milcd a grim smde to himself. The momerH for action had IjOW arrived. He would ];ut on pre&sure to get away 1 158 rilF WOMAN WHO DID, mi : poor Alan's illegitimate child from that dreadful woman. Next day he called. Dolly was dani^^erously ill, — so ill that llerminia could n't find it in her heart to dismiss the great doctor from her dng must tliou do, or wrong n>ust .sulfLr.' Then grant, O dund). Mind god, at le.ist tluit wc Rather the sulferers than the doers be. II l62 THE WOMAN WHO DID. XVI. A CHANCE canic at last, when Dolly was ten years old. Anioni; the men of whom Herminia saw most in tliese later days, were the little group of advanced London socialists who call themselves the h'abians. And among her l"\abian friends one of the most active, the most eager, the most individual, was Harvey Kynaston. He was a younger man by many years than poor Alan had been; about Herminia's own age; a brilliant economist with a future before him. He aimed at the Cabinet. When first he met Herminia he was charmed at one glance by her chastened beauty, her breadth and depth of soul, her transjiarent sincerity of purpose and action. Tliose wistful eyes captured him. Ik'fore many davs passed he had fallen in love with her. lUit he knew her history; and, tak- lUii it iv r ^■ranted she must still be immerseil in regret for Alan's loss, he hardly even reckoned the chances of her caring for him. 'T is a common case. Have you ever noticed that if you meet a woman, famous for her con- THE WOMAN WHO DID. 1^3 ncction vith some absorbing grief, some his- toric tragedy, you are half appalled at first siglit to find that at times she ean laugh, and make merry, and look gay with the rest of us. Her callous glee shocks you. Yini mentally expect her to be forever engaged in the teartul con- templation of her own tragic fate; wra])t up in those she has lost, like the mourners in a i'ieta. Whenever you have thought of her, jou have connected her in your mind with that one fact in her history, which perhaps may have happened a great many years ago. Ihit to you, it is as yesterday. You forget that since then many things have occurred to her. She has lived her life; she has learned to smile; human nature itself cannot feed for years on the continuous comtemplation of its own deepest sorrows. It even jars you to find that the widow of a patriotic martyr, a murdered missionary, has her moments of enjoyment, and must wither away without them. So, just at first, Harvey Kynaston was afraid to let Herminia see how sincerely he admired h r. He thought of her rather as one whose life is spent, who can bring to the banquet but the cold dead ashes of a past existence. Grad- ually, however, as he saw more and more of her, it began to strike him that Herminia was still in all essentials a woman. His own \hl 164 Till'. WOMAN WIK t DID. throhbiiiL^ heart told liiiii so as he sat aiul talked with her. lie thrilled at her approach. l)it l)y hit the idea rose up in his mind that this lonely soul might suil hr wori. lie set to work in earnest to woo anil win her. As for Ilerminia, many men had paid her attentions already in her unwedded widowhood. Some of them, alter the fashion of men, ha\ing heard i^arbled versions of her tragic story, and seeking to gain some base advantage for them- selves froni their knowledge ol her ])ast, strove to assail her crudely. Them, witii uneiring womanly instinct, she early discerned, and with unerring feminine tact, undeceived and lunnbled. Others, genuinely attracted by her beauty and her patience, paid real cnurt to her heart; but all these fell far short of her ideid slandard. With Harvey Kynaston it was different. She achr.ired him as a thinkei ; she liked him as a man ; and she felt from the hrst moment that no friend, since Alan died, had stirred her pulse so deej)ly as lie did. I'^)r s(»me months they met often at the I'abian meetings and elsewhere; till at last it became a habit with them to spend their Suntlay mornings on some breezy wold in the country together, Herminia was still as free as ever from any shrinking terror as to what " i)eople might say;" as of old. she livetl her life for herself t?n THE WOMAX WHO DID. 165 and her conscience, not for the oi)ini()n of a blind and superstitious majority. On one such August morning, they had taken the train from London to Ilaslemere, with Dolly of course by their side, and then had strolled uj) Hind Head by the beautiful footpath which mounts at fust through a chestnut copse, and then between heatlier-clad hills to the summit. At the lone- liest turn of the track, where two purple glens divide, Harvey Kynaston seated himself on the soft bed of ling; Herminia sank l)y his side; and Dolly, after awhile, not understanding their conversation, wandered off by herself a little way afield in search of harebells and si)otted orchises. Dolly found her mother's friends were apt to bore her; she preferred the s(.ciety of the landlady's daughters. It was a delicious day. Hard by, a slow- worm sunned himself on the basking sand. l)lue dragon-flies dashed on gauze wings in the hollows. Harvey Kynaston looked on Hor- minia's face uni] saw that she was fair. With an effort he made up his mind to sneak at last. In i)lain and simple words he asked her rever- ently the same (piestion that Alan had asked her so long ago on tlu' Holmwood. Ilerminia's throat Hushed a rosy red, and nn unwonted sense of j)leasure stole over that hard- worked frame as she listened to his werds; for 1 66 Till'. WOMAN WHO DID. II indeed she was fond of lum. lUit she answer^-d him at once without a nmnient's Invitation. "Harvey, I'm ^lad you ask me, for I like and achnire you. lUit I feel sure beforehand my answer must he no. T'or I think what you mean is to ask, will I marry you? " The man jj;azed at her hard. lie spoke low and deferentially. " Ves, llerminia," he re- plied. "I do mean, will you marry me.' I know, of course, how you feel about this matter; I know what you have sacrificed, how deeply you have suffered, for the sake of your prin- ciples. And that 's just why I p^ead with you now to ijj^nore them. You ha\\ ij;iven proof loni; ago of your devotion to the rii^ht. Vou may surely fall back this second time uj^on the easier way of ordinary humanity. In theory, llerminia, I accept your point of view; I approve the ecpial liberty of men and women, j)olitically, socially, personally, ethically. But in i^ractice, I don't want to brin'j; unnecessary trouble on the head of a woman I love; and to live toc;ether (Uherwise than as the law directs does bring unnecessary trouble, as you know too profoimdly. I'hat is the only reason wdiy I ask you to marry me. And llerminia, llerminia," he leant forv\ard appealingly, "for the love's sake I bear you, I hope you will consent to it." His voice was low and tender. llerminia, THE WOMAN Mlo nin. 167 sick at heart with that long fierce strii;;'j;lo against overwhehiiini;- (xkls, could aliimst liave said j'lS to him. Her own nature prompted her; she was V' ry, very tond ot him. Hut she paused for a second. Then she answered him gravely. "Harvey," she said, looking tleep into his honest hrown eyes, "as we grow middle-aged, and find how impossible it must ever be to achieve any good in a world like this, how sail a fate it is to ])e born a civilized being m :i barbaric community, I'm afraid moral imi)ulse half dies down within us. The passionate aim grows cold; the ardent glow fad.s and flickers into apathy. I 'm ashamed to tell you the truth, it seems such weakness; yet as you ask me this, I think I r.v// tell you. Once upon a time, if you had made such a proposal to me, if you had urged me to be false to my clearest principles, to sin against the light, to deny the truth, I would have flashed forth a //<; upon you without one moment's hesitation. And now, in my disillusioned middle age what do I feel.? Ho you know, I almost feel tempted to give way to this Martinmas summer of love, to 4ul- tify my jjast by unsaying and undoing eveiy- thing. J'\)r I love you, Harvey. If I were to give way now, as George VMot gave way, as almost every woman who once tried to live a IG8 Tin: WOMAN WHO DID. free life for her sisters' sake, lias [;iven way in the end, I should eounteraet any little good my example has ever done or may ever do in the world; and Harvey, strange as it sounds, I teel more than half inelined to do it. J kit I icill not, I iK.nll n(;t ; and I "11 tell you why. It's not so mueh prineii)le that prevents me now. I admit that freely. The toi})or of middle age is ereeping (ner my conseience. It 's simijle regard for personal eonsistency, and for Dolly's positiori. How ean I go hack upon the faith for which I have martyred myself.' How can I say to Dolly, ' I would n't marry your father in my youth, for honor's sake; but I have con- sentetl in middle life to sell my sisters' cause for a man I love, and for the consideration of society; to rehabilitate myself too late with a world I despise by becoming one man's slave, as I swore I never would be.' No, no, dear Harvey; I can't do that. Some sense of per- sonal continuity restrains me still. It is the Nemesis of our youth; we can't go back in our later life on the holier and purer ideals oi our girlhood. " "Then you say no definitely.-*" Harvey Kynaston asked. Herminia's voice quivered. "I say no definitely," she answered; "unless you can consent to live with me on the terms on which I lived with Dolly's father." Tin; WOMAN WHO DID, 160 The man hesitated a moment. Then hebej^an to plead hard inv reeonsideiauoii. lUit IKt- minia's mind was made up. She eould n\ hdie lier past; she eoidd n"t he false to llu- pritieiph'S for whose sake she had staked and Inst cvcry- thin<;. " \o, no," she said firmly, over and over a£,^ain. " Vou must take me my own way, or you must i;o without me." And Harvey Kynaston eould n't eonsent to take her her own way. His faith was too weak, ids ambitions w.re too earthly. "Herminia," he said, before they i)arted that afternoon, "we may still be friends; still dear friends as ever? This episode need make no difference to a very close companionship.^" "It need make no difference," Herminia an- swered, with a lii^ht touch of her hand. " Har- vey, I have far too few friends in the world willin.i;ly to give up one of them. Come ai^ain and l;o down with Dolly and me to Hind J lead as usual next Sunday." "Thank you," the man answered. "Her- minia, 1 wish it could have been otherwise. But since I must nc-vcr have you, T can promise you one thin--; f will never marry any other woman." Hermini: started nt the words. "Oh, no," she cried cpiickly. "How can you speak like that.^ How can you say anything so wrong, so 11: 170 THE WOMAN WHO DU). untrue, so foolish? To be cc'lil)ato is a very great misfortune even for a woman ; for a man it is impossil)le, it is eruel, it is wieked. 1 endure it myself, for my eiiild's sake, and be- cause I find it hard to discover the help meet for me; or because, when discovered, he refuses to acce})t me in the only way in which I can bestow myself. lUit for a man to pretend to live celibate is to cloak hateful wrong under a guise of respectability. I should be unhappy if I thought any man was doing such a vicious thing out of desire to |)lease me. Take some other woman on free terms if you can; but if you cannot, it is better you should marry than be a party to still deeper and more loathsome slavery. " And from that day forth they were loyal friends, no more, one to the other. THE WOMAN WHO DID. 171 XVII. A\n yet our I Term in ia was a woman after all. Some three years later, when Harvey Kynaston came to visit her one day, and told her he was really <;oin,^^ to be married, — what sudden thrill was this that passed through and through her. Her heart stood still. She was aware that she regretted the comparative loss of a very near and dear accjuaintance. She knew she was ([uite wroni;- It was th'.« leaven of slavery. lUit these monop^)list in- stincts, wliich have wrought more harm in the world we live in than fire or sword or i)esti- lence or tempest, hardly die at all as yet in a few good men, and die, fighting hard for life, even in the noblest women. She reasoned with herself against so hateful a feeling. Though she knew tlie truth, she found it hard to follow. No man imleed is truly civilized till he can say in all sincerity to every vvoman of all the women he loves, to every woman (jf all the women who luve hini, i 172 THE WOMAN WHO DID. *'r}i\'c me what you can of your love and of yoursclt; but never strive for my sake to deny any hjve, to stran,L;le any inijnilse that pants for breatli within you. Give me what you can, while you can, without j^rutl^in.i;, but the moment you f«.'el you h)ve me no more, don't polhite your own body by yielding it up tn a man you ha\e censed to desire; don't do injus- tice to your own ju-ospective children by giving them a lather whom )()u no longer respect, or admiie, or yearn for. (iuaiil your chastity well. lie mine as much as you will, as long as you will, to such extent as you will, but before all things be your own; embrace ami follow every instinct of pure love that nature, our mother, has imparted within you." No wom;ui, in tuin, is truly civilized till she can say to every man of all the men she loves, of all the men who love her, "Give me what you can of your love, and of yourself; but don't think I am so vile, and so selfish, and so poor as to desire to monopolize you. Respect me enough never to give me your body without gi\ing me your heart; never to make me the mother of child- ren whom you desire not and love not." When men and women can say that alik*., the world will be civilizetl. Until tlu'y can say it truly, the world will be as now a jarring battleheld for the monopolist instincts. TIIF, WOMAN' WHO DID. 1/3 Those jealous and odious instincts have hccn the bane of humanity. They have ,L;i\cn us the stiletto, the Morgue, the howii'-knit'c. Our race must inevitably in the end outlive them. The test ot" man's plane in the scale of beiui;- is how tar he has .)ut lived them. They are surviviui;- relics of the ape and ti.i^er. Hut we must let the ai)e and ti-er die. We must cease U) be Calibans. We must bei;in to l)e human. Patriotism is the one of thi'se lowest vices which most often mascjuerades in false ,L;arb as a virtue. Hut what after all /s patriotism? "My country, ri-ht or wron.i;, and just because it is my country!" This is ckarly nothin.i; more than collective selfishness. Often enoui^h, indeed, it is not even collective. It means merely, '' A/j> business-interests a,i;ainst tlie business-interests of other iK-ople, and let the taxes of my fellow-citizens j)ay to sujiport them." At oth.'r times it means j)ure ])ride of race, and pure lust of con^iuest; " wj' country aj;ainst other countries; ///;- army and navy a-^ainst other fi<;hters; wr ri.L;ht to annex un- occupied territory a,L;ainst the ecpial ri-ht of all other peoples; ?;/j> power to o))press all weaker nationalities, all inferior races." It wrrrr means or can mean anvthim; cjood or true. I'or if a cause be just, like Ireland's, or once Italy's, then 'tis a good man's duty to csihjuso J 74 Tin: WOMAN Wild DID. V I I it wiih wannth, be it his own or another's. And if a cause he had, then 't is a ^^ood man's duty to opi)ose it, tootli and nail, irrespective of your patriotism. True, a good man will feel more sensitively anxious that strict justice; should be done by the particular community of which chrmce has made him a component mem- ber than by any others; but then, people who feel acutely this joint responsibility of all the citizens to uphold the moral right are not praised as jiatriots but reviled as unpatriotic. To urge that our own country should strive with all its might to be better, higher, purer, nobler, more generous than other countries, — the only kind of patriotism worth a moment's thought in a righteous man's eyes, is accounted by most men both wicked and foolish. Then comes the monopolist instinct of prop- erty. That, on the face of it, " i baser and more sordid one. 1^'or patriotism at least can lay claim to some sort of delusive expansive- ness beyond mere individual interest; whereas proj)erty stops short at the narrowest limits of personality. It is no longer " Us against the world!" but " Me against my fellow-citizens ! " It is the last word of the intercivic war in its most hideous avatar. Look how it scars the fair face of our common country with its anti- social notice-boards, "Trespassers will be pros- THE WdMAN WHO DID. 175 eciitcd." It .says In uffcct, "This is my huul. As I believe, God iiuule it; but I have aecjiiired it, and tabofjed il to myself, for my own enjoy- ment. The grass on the wold grows green; but only (or me. The mountains rise glorious in the morning sim ; no foot of man, sa\-e mine and my gillies' shall tread them. The water- falls leap white from the ledge in the glen; avaunt there, non possessors ; your eye shall never see them. b'or you the muddy street; for me, miles of upland. All thi^' is my own. And r ehoose to monopolize it." Or is it the eapitalist.' " I will add field to field," he cries aloiid, desidte his own Scripture; "I will join railway to railway. I will juggle into my own hands all the instruments for the production of wealth tliat my cunning caii lay hold of; and I will use them for my own purposes against producer and consumer alike with impar- tial egoism. Corn and coal shall lie in the h(d- low of my hand. I will enrich myself bv makini: dear l)y craft the necessaries of life; the jjoor shall lack, that I may roll down fair streets in needless luxury. Let them starve, and (red nie!" That temper, too, humanitv must out- live. And those who are incapable of outliviuLT it of them.selves must be taught by stern les- .sons, as in the splendid uprising of the spirit of man in iM-ance, that their race has outstripped them. Hi 176 TlIK WOMAN WHO DID. Next comes the monopoly of human life, the hideous utohl:; of skuery. That, thank good- ness, is now t;()ne. 'T was the vilest of them all — the nakedest assertion of the monopolist platform: — " \'ou live, not for yourself, hut wholly and solely for me. I (lisreL;ard your claims to your own body and soul, and use you as my chattel." That worst form has died. It withered away before the moral indignation even of existing; humanity. We have the satis- faction of seeing one dragon slain, of knowing that one monoj)olist instinct at least is now fairly bred out of us. Last, and hardest of all to eradicate in our midst, comes the monojooly of the human heart, which is known as riiarriage. Ikised upon the primitive habit of felling the woman with a blow, stunning her by repeated strokes of the club oi" spear, and dragging her off l)y the hair of her head as a slave to her cai)tor's hut or rock- shelter, this ugly and barbaric form of serfdom has come in our own time by some strange caj)rice to be reganled as of i)ositively ilivine origin. The Man says now to himself, "This woman is mine. Law and the Church have bestowed her on me. IMine for better, for worse; mine, drunk or sober. If she ventures to have a heart or a will of her own, \voe betide her! I ha\e tabooed her for life: let any other TIIK \V( (MAX WHO DII). 177 man touch her, Icf; hci .^o imich as cast eyes on any other man to aihnire or desire him — and, knife, (la<;rt, she had what the world calls common-sense: she re- volted from the unpractical Utopianism of her mother. From a very early a-o, indeed, this false note in Dolly iiad be-un to make itself heard. While she was yet cjuite a chiM. Ilerminia noticed with a certain tender but shrinking; reL,Tet that Dolly seemed to attach undiK; im- portance to the mere U{)holsteries and e<|ui- pages of life, — to rank, wealth, title, servants, carria.«,^cs, jewelry. At first, to be sure, Iler- minia hoped this mii;ht prove but the passini,^ foolishness of childhood: as J)olly f^rew \\p, however, it became clearer each day that the defect was in the ,L!:rain — that Dolly's whole mind was incural)ly and con^;enitally aristo- cratic or snobbish. She had that mean admira- tion for birth, position, adventitious advantages, ^■^%. ^'*U A^ rv '^> # W^r. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) Wc? M, %p.- x< w. (/x 5^ (/. 1.0 I.I 1.25 1112 m i!j||28 II u If Itf IM 2.2 2£ III™ 1.4 11.6 - 6" V] ^ N> ;V 6^ IF l | l< ia ii lBH)li^>l. l |ll l l l l | H B I( | | || M,-,l^.r r ll ri» - Tin", WONfAN WHO Din. IS5 understand, then, wliy she and her mother shonkl li\'e i)reeari<)us]y in a vrvv small attie; should never be visitetl l)y her mother's bi-others, one of whom she knew to be a Prebendary of Old Sarum, while the other she saw i^azetted as a Colonel of Artillery; and should be totally it^nored by her mother's sister, ba'myntrude, who lolled in a landau down the sunny side of Bond Street. At hrst, indeed, it only occurred to Dolly that her mother's extreme and advanced opinions had induced a social breach between herself and the orthodox members of her family. ICven that Dolly resented ; why should mamma hold ideas of her own which shut her daui^hter out from the worldly advanta^L;-es enjoyed to the full by the rest of her kindred? Dolly had no partic- ular reli*;"ious ideas; the subject did n't interest her; and besides, she thought the New Testa- ment talked about rich and poor in much the same unpractical nebuhjus way that mamma herself did — in fact, she rei;-ar(led it with sonn} veiled contempt as a rather sentimental radical publication. But, she considered, for all that, that it was probaldy true enouf^di as far as the facts and the theoloi^y went ; and she could n't understand why a person like mamma should cut herself off contumaciously from the rest of the world by presuming to disbelieve a body of 1 80 THE WOMAN WHO DID. doctrine whicli so many rich and vvcll-cjaitcrcd bishops held worthy of credence. All stylish society accepted the tenets of the Church of Knf^dand. lUit in time it began to occur to her that there might be some deeper and, as she herself would have said, more disgraceful reason for her mother's alienation from so respectable a family. For to Dolly, that was disgraceful which the world held to be so. Things in themselves, apart from the world's word, had for her no existence. Step by step, as she grew up to blushing womanhood, it began to strike her with surprise that her grand- father's name had been, like her own, Barton. "Did you marry your cousin, mamma.''" she asked lierminia one day quite suddenly. And lierminia, flushing scarlet at the unex- pected question, th(3 first with which Dolly had yet ventured to approach that dangerous quick- sand, replied with a deadly thrill, *' No, my dar- ling. Why do you ask me.-* " "Because," Dolly answered abashed, "I just wanted to know why your name should bo Barton, the same as poor grandpapa's." riermijiia didn't dare to say too much just then. "Your dear father," she answered low, "was not related to me in any way." Dolly accepted the tone as closing the dis- cussion for the present; but the episode only MMi !^ l> » i ui tW W WW» »BjiWCT;;i t fp' i «i B<| ( iwi W*J ^ ^ THE WOMAN WHO DID. 1R7 Strengthened her underlying- sense of a mystery somewhere in the matter t(j unravel. In time, llerminia sent her ehild to a day- school. Thou.L,di she had always taught Dolly her.ielf as well as she was id)le, she tVlt it a matter of duty, as her daughter grew up, to give her something more than the stray ends of time in a busy journalist's moments of leisure. At the school, where Dolly was received without question, on Miss Smith- Water's recommenda- tion, she found herself thrown much into the society of other girls, drawn for the most part from the narrowly Mammon-worshipping ranks of London professional society. Here, her native tendencies towards the real religion of England, the united worship of Success and Respectability, were encouraged to the utmost. But she noticed at times with a shy shrinking that some few of the girls had heard vague rumors about her mother as a most equivocal person, who didn't accept all the current super- stition.s, and were curious to ask her questions as to her family and antecedents. Crimson with shame, Dolly parried such enquiries as best she could; but she longed all the more herself to pierce this dim mystery. Was it a runaway match.? — with the groom, perhaps, or the footman.? Only the natural shamefacedness of a budding girl in prying into her mother's J 1 88 THE WOMAN WHO DID. most domestic secrets prevented Dolores from asking lleiininia some day point-blank all about it. But she was gradually becoming aware that some strange atmos})here of ^oubt surrounded her birth and her motlier's history. It filled her with sensitive fears and self-conscious hes- itations. And if the truth must be told, Dolly never really returned her mother's profound affec^ tion. It is often so. The love which parents lavish upon their children, the children repay, not to parents tlv.'mselves, but to tlie next generation. Only when we become fathers or mt^thers in our turn do we learn what our fathers and mothers have done lor us. Thus it was with Dolly. When once the first period of childish dependence was over, she legarded Herminia with a smoulderinir distrust and a tin secret dislike that concealed itself beneath a mask of unfelt caresses. In her heart of hearts, she owed her mother a grudge for not having put her in a position in life where she could drive in a carriage with a snarling pug and a clipped French poodle, like Aunt Ermyntrude's children. She grew up, smarting under a sullen sense of injustice, all the deeper because she was compelled to stifle it in the profoundcst recesses of her own heart. -" vm Mrsm-t mm o ii i- M f'i ' vt tmnirK*-! THE WOMAN WHO DID. 189 XIX. When Dolly was seventeen, a pink wild rose just unrolling its petals, a very great event occurred in her history. She received an invi- tation to go and stop with some friends in the country. The poor child's life had been in a sense so uneventful that t.ie bare prospect of this visit filled her soul beforehand with tremulous antic- ipation. To be sure, Dolly l^arton had always lived in the midmost centre of the Movement in London, she had known authors, artists, socialists, the cream of our race; she had been brought up in close intercourse with the men and women who are engaged in revolutionizing and remodelling humanity. ]^ut this verv fact that she had always lived in the Thick of Things made a change to the Thin of Things only by so much the more delicious and enchanting. Not that Dolores had not seen a great deal, too, of the country. Poor as they were, her mother had taken her to cheap little seaside nooks for a week or two of each summer; she had made i!y 190 TIIK Wf)MAN WHO DID pi li;r images almost every Sunday in spring or autumn to Leilli Hill or ]\Iai)le(lurham ; she had even strained hi-r scanty resources to tlic utmost to afford Dolly an occasional outing in the Ardennes or in Normandy. lUit what gave supreme importance to this coming visit was the special fact that Dolly was now for the first time in her life to find herself " in society." Among the friends she had picked up at lier Marylebone day-school were two west-country girls, private boarders of the head-mistress's, who came from the neighborhood of Combe Neville in Dorset. Their name was Compson, and their father was rector of their native vil- lage, Upcombe. Dolly liked them very much, and was proud of their acquaintance, because they were reckoned about the most distinguished pupils in the school, their mother being the niece of a local viscount. Among girls in middle-class London sets, even so remote a connection with the title-bearing classes is counted for a distinction. So when Winnie Compson asked Dolly to go and stop with her at her father's rectory during three whole weeks of the summer holidays, Dolly felt that now at last by pure force of native worth she was rising to her natural position in society. It flattered her that Winnie should select her for such an honor. Si ■BBl THE WOMAN WHO DID. 191 The preparations for that visit cost Dolly some weeks of thou^i^ht aiul effort. The occa- sion demanded it. She was afraid she had no frocks ^i^ood enouL;h for such a i;rand house as the Compsons'. "(jrand" was indeed a fav- orite epithet of Dolly's; she applied it im})ar- tially to everything which had to do, as she conceived, with the life of the propertied and privile<^ed classes. It was a word at once of cherished and revered meaning — the shil)boKth of her religion. It implied to her mind some- thing remote and unapproachable, yet to be earnestly striven after with all the forces at her disposal. Even Herminia herself stretched a point in favor of an occasion which she could plainly see Dolly regarded as so important; she managed to indulge her darling in a cou[)le of dainty new afternoon dresses, which touched for her soul the very utmost verge of allowable lux- ury. The materials were oriental ; the cut was the dressmaker's — not home-built, as usual. Dolly looked so brave in them, with her rich chestnut hair and her creamy complexion, — a touch, Herminia thought, of her Italian birth- place, — that the mother's full heart leapt up to look at her. It almost made Herminia wish she was rich — and anti-social, like the rich people ' — in order that she might be able to do ample justice to the exquisite grace of Dolly's unfold- 192 THE WOMAN WHO DID. ■ 'i I ^ ill,:; fi,L;i!re. Tall, lissome, supple, clear of limb and liL;ht of ioolstep, she was indeed a girl any nKJther might have been i)roiid of. On the day she left London, Herminia thought to herself she had never seen her child look so absolutely lovely. The unwonted unicjn of blue eyes with that olive-gray skin gave a tinge of wayward shyness to her girlish beauty. The golden locks had ripened to nut-brown, but still caught stray gleams of nestling sunlight. 'T was with a foreboding regret that Herminia kissed Dolly on both peach-bloom cheeks at parting. She almost fancied her child must be slipping from her motherly grasp when she went off so blithely to visit these unknown friends, away down in Dorsetshire. Yet Dolly had so few amusements of the sort young girls require that Herminia was overjoyed this opportunity should have come to her. She reproached herself not a little in her sensitive heart for even feeling sad at Dolly's joyous departure. Yet to Dolly it was a delight to escape from the atmosphere of Herminia's lodgings. Those calm heights chilled her. The Compsons' house was c^uite as "grand" in the reality as Dolly had imagined it. There was a man-servant in a white tie to wait at table, and the family dressed every evening for dinner. Yet, much to her surprise, Dolly found »«MI«fe»)<«l.;<»w.^* »=-" .. 'llli: WOMAN' WHO 1)11). '93 irnm tiic first the i^randcur tlid not in tlic least incommode her. On tlie contiai\', she enjoyed it. She felt forthwith she was to the manner born. This was clearly the life she was intended by nature to live, and mi-;ht actually have been livin^^ — she, the L,aanddauL;-hter of so .-^'rand a man as the late Dean of Dunwich — had it not been for ]^oor Mamma's ridiculous fancies. Mamma was so faddy ! JJefore Dolly had s[)ent three whole days at the rectory, she talked just as the Compsons did; she picked U[) by [)ure instinct the territorial slani^ of the county families. One would have thou_i;ht, to hear her discourse, she had dressed for dinner every night of her life, and passed her days in the society of the beneficed clergy. Ikit even that did not exhaust the charm of Upcombe for D(dly. For the first time in her life, she saw something of men,— real men, with horses and dogs and guns,— men who went out partridge shooting in the season and rode to hounds across country, not the pale abstractions of cultured humanity who attended the Fabian Society meetings or wrote things called articles in the London papers. Her mother's friends wore soft felt hats and limj) woollen collars; these real men were richly clad in tweed suits and fine linen. Dolly was charmed with them all, but especially with one handsome and manly 13 194 TllK WOMAN WHO DID. n youn^ follow named WaltcM* Brydgcs, the step- son and ward of a neighboring parson. *'Ifow you talked with him at tennis to-day! " Winnie Compson said to her friend, as they sat on the edge of Dolly's i^ed one evening. *' He seemed quite taken with you." A pink siM)t of jileasure glowed on Dolly's round cheek to think that a real young man, in good society, wht)m she met at so grand a house as the Compsons', should seem to be quite taken with her. "Who is he, Winnie.^" she asked, trying to look less self-conscious. **Hes extremely good-looking. " "Oh, he's Air. Ilawkshaw's stepson, over at Combe Mary," Winnie answered witii -^ nod. " Mr. Ilawkshaw 's the vicar there till Mamma's ne])hew is ready to take the living — what they call a warming-pan. liut Walter ]5rydges is Mrs. Ilawkshaw's son by her first husband. Old Mr. Brydges was the squire of Combe Mary, and Walter's his only child. He's very well off. Vou might do w(M'se, dear. He 's considered cjuite a catch down in this part of the country." "How old is he.^" Dolly asked, innocently enough, standing u[) by the bedside in her dainty white nightgown. lUit Winnie caught at her meaning with the preternatural sharpness '^S!»fri.#»'4*''n'^'''>i^ THE WOMAN WHO ill). 20 1 Dolly was dimly aware, womanlike, of some- thing amiss, something altered in his manner. Not, indeed, that her lover was less affectionate or less tender than Uhual, — if anything he seemed rather more so; but his talk w^as embar- rassed, i^-e-oceupied, spasmodic. He spoke by fits and starts, and seemed to hold back some- thing. Uolly taxed him witli it at last. Walter tried to put it off u})on her approaching depart- ure. lUit he was an honest young man, and so bad an actor that Dollv, witli her keen feminine intuitions, at once detected him. *' It 's more than that," she said, all regret, leaning forward with a quick-gathering moisture in her eye, for she really loved him. "It's more than that, Walter. You 've heard something somewhere that you don't want to tell me." Walter's color changed at once. He was a man, and therefore but a poor dissembler, "Well, nothing very much," he admitted, awk- wardly. Dolly drew back like one stung; her heart beat fast. "What have you lieard.^ " she cried trembling; "Walter, Walter, I love you ! You must keep nothing back. Tell me ;/(>u' what it is. I can bear to hear it." The young man hesitated. " Only something my step-father heard from a friend last night," he replied, floundering deeper and deeper. 202 THE WOMAN WHO DID. ,;; I. "Nothing at all about you, darling. Only — • well — about your family." Dolly's face was red as fire. A lump rose in her throat; she started in horror. Then he had found out the Truth. He had probed the Mystery. "Something that makes you sorry you prom- ised to ma'"''y me.''" she cried aloud in her despair. Heaven faded before her eyes. What evil trick could mamma have played her.-* As she stood there that moment — proud, crimson, breathless — Walter I5rydges would have married her if her father had been a tinker and her mother a gipsy girl. He drew her tow- ard him tenderly. "No, darling," he cried, kissing her, for he was a chivalrous young man, as he understood chivalry; and to him it was indeed a most cruel blow to learn that his future wife was born out of lawful wedlock. "I'm proud of you; I love you. I worship the very ground your sweet feet tread on. Nothing on earth could make me anything but grateful and thankful for the gift of your love you 're gracious enough to bestow on me." But Dolly drew back in alarm. Not on such terms as those. She, too, had her pride; she, too, had her chivalry. "No, no," she cried, shrink- ing. "I don't know what it is. I don't know what it means. But till I 've gone home to .",%^pflV^JWft 'V#ystP*B"'' THE WOMAN WHO DID. 203 London and asked about it from mother, — oh, Walter, we two are no Ioniser engaged. You are free from your promise." She said it proudly; she said it bravely. She said it with womanly grace and dignity. Some- thing of Ilerminia shone out in her that moment. No man should ever take her — to the grandest home — unless ne took her at her full worth, pleased and proud to win her. Walter soothed and coaxed ; but Dolores stood firm. Like a rock in the sea, no assault could move her. As things stood at present, she cried, they were no longer engaged. After she had seen her mother and talked it all over, she would write to him once more, and tell him what she thought of it. And, crimson to the finger-tips with shame and modesty, she rushed from his presence up to her own dark bed-room. 204 THE WOMAN WHO DID. XXI. , 1 j< :; Next morning early, Dolly left Combe Neville on her way to London. When she reached the station, Walter was on the platform with a bunch of white roses. He handed them to her deferentially as she took her seat in the third- class carriage; and so sobered was Dolly by this great misfortune that she forgot even to feel a passing pang of shame that Walter should see her travel in that humble fashion. "Remem- ber," he whispered in her ear, as the train steamed out, "we are still engaged; I hold you to your promise." And Dolly, blushing maidenly shame and dis- tress, shook her head decisively. "Not now," she answered. "I must wait till I know the truth. It has always been kept from me. And now I tl'/// know it." She had not slept that night. All the way up to London, she kept turning her doubt over. The more she thought of it, the deeper it galled her. Her wrath waxed bitter against Herminia for this evil turn she had wrought. The wimif-m-^ 'rv>»v»iwxiiiitm^^ jMM»,m m i> < ' -i i( > mm< i f*> -tjimi THE WOMAN WHO DID. 205 smouldering anger of years blazed forth at last. Had she blighted her daughter's li'.e, and spoiled so fair a future by obstinate adherence to those preposterous ideas of hers.-* Never in her life had Dolly loved her mother. At best, she had felt towards her that contempt- uous toleration which inferior minds often ex- tend to higher ones. And now — why, she hated her. In London, as it happened, that very morn- ing, Herminia, walking across Regent's Park, had fallen in with Harvey Kynaston, and their talk had turned upon this self -same problem. " What will you do when she asks you about it, as she must, sooner or later?" the man inquired. And Herminia, smiling that serene sweet smile of hers, made answer at once without a second's hesitation, " I shall confess the whole tuth to her." "But it might be so bad for her," Harvey Kynaston went on. And then he proceeded to bring up in detail casuistic objections on the score of a young girl's modesty; all of which fell flat on He^minia's more honest and consis- tent temperament. ** I believe in the truth," she said simply; "and I 'm never afraid of it. I don't think a lie, or even a suppression, can ever be good in 206 THK WOMAN WHO DID. the end for any one. The Truth shall make you Free. That one principle in life can guide one through everything." In the evening, when Dolly came home, her mother ran out proudly and affectionately to kiss her. But Dolly drew back her face with a gest ure of displeasure, nay, almost of shrinking. " Not now, mother! " she cried. " I have some- thing to ask you about. Till I know the truth, I can never kiss you." Herminia's face turned deadly white; she knew it had come at last. But still she never flinched. "You shall hear the truth from me, darling," she said, with a gentle touch. "You have always heard it." They passed under the doorway and up the stairs in silence. As soon as they were in the sitting-room, Dolly fronted Herminia fiercely. "Mother," she cried, with the air of a wild creature at bay, " were vou married to my father?" Herminia's cheek blanched, and her pale lips quivered as she nerved herself to answer; but she answered bravely, "No, darling, I was not. It has always been contrary to my principles to marry. " " Vour principles!" Dolores echoed in a tone of ineffable scorn. " Yo//r principles ! Your principles! All my life has been sacrificed to THE WOMAN WHO DH). 207 you and your principles!" Then she turned on her madly once more. "And i^.^ho was my father? " she burst out in her a<;ony. Herminia never paused. She must tell her the truth. ** Your father's name was Alan Merrick," she answered, steadying herself with one hand on the table, "lie died at Peru-ia before you were born there, lie was a son of Sir Anthony Merrick, the great doctor in llarley Street." The worst was out. Dolly stood still and gasped. Hot horror flooded her burning cheeks. Illegitimate! illegitimate! Dishonored from her birth! A mark for every cruel tongue to aim at! Born in shame and disgrace! And then, to think what she might have been, but for her mother's madness! The granddaughter of two such great men in their way as the Dean of Dunwich and Sir Anthony Merrick. She drew back, ail aghast. Shame and agony held her. Something of maiden modesty burned bright in her cheek and down her very neck. Red waves coursed through her. How on earth after this could she face Walter Ikydges? "Mother, mother!" she broke out, sobbing, after a moment's pause, "oh, what have you done? What have you done? A cruel, cruel mother you have been to me. How can I ever forgive you ? " 208 THE WOMAN WHO DID. Uw M r^ilSf Herminia gazed at her, appalled. It was a natural tragedy. Tlicre was no way out of it. She coukl n't help seizing the thing at once, in a lightning flash of sympathy, from Dolly's {)()int of view, too. Quick womanly instinct made her heart bleed for her daughter's manifest shame and horror. "Dolly, Dolly," the agonized mother cried, flinging herself upon her child's mercy, as it were; "Don't be hard on me; don't be hard on me! My darling, how could I ever guess you would look at it like this.'' IIow could I c\er guess my daughter and his would see things for herself in so different a light from the light we saw them in ? " "You had no right to bring me into the world at all," Dolly cried, growing fiercer as her mother grew more unhappy. " If you did, you should have put me on au equality with other people. " "Dolly," Herminia moaned, wringing her hands in her despair, "my child, my darling, how I have loved you! how I have watched o\ er you! Your life has been for years the one thing I had to live for. I dreamed you would be just such another one as myself. Equal \s\\\\ other people! Why, I thought I was giving you the noblest heritage living woman ever yet gave the child of her bosom. I tliought you would be ,tM''Bl(^'r.fi-^m>^ THE WOMAN WHO DID. 209 cr proud of it, as I myself would have been proud. I thou<^ht you would accept it as a glorious birthright, a supreme privilege. How could I foresee you would turn aside from your mother's creed? How could I anticipate you would bo ashamed of being the first free-born woman ever bcixotten in England.^ 'T was a blessing I meant to give you, and you have made a curse of it." " Vo7i have made a curse of it!" Dolores an- swered, rising and glaring at her. "You have blighted my life for me. A good man and true was going to make me his wife. After this, how can T dare to palm myself off upon him ? " She swept from the room. Though broken with sorrow, her step was resolute. Herminia followed her to her bed-room. There Dolly sat long on the edge of the bed, crying silently, silently, and rocking herself up and down like one mad with agony. At last, in one fierce burst, she relieved her burdened soul by pour- ing out to her mother the whole tale of her meeting with Walter Brydges. Though she hated her, she must tell her. Herminia lis- tened with deep shame. It brought the color back into her own pale cheek to tliink any man should deem he was ]vjrforming an act of chival- rous self-devotion in marrying Herminia Barton's unlawful daughter. Alan Merrick's child ! The 14 210 THE WOMAN WHO VU). child of so many hopes! The bahy that was born to regenerate humanity! At last, in a dogged way, Dolly rose once more. She put on her hat and jacket. "Where arc you going?" her mother asked, terrified. "I am going out," Dolores answered, "to the post, to telegra])h to him." She worded her telegram briefly hut ])roudly: " My mother has told me all. I understand your feeling. Our arrangement is annulled. Good-by. You have been kind t(> me." An hour or two later, a return telegram came : — '* Our engagement remains exactly as it was. Nothing is changed. I hold you to your promise. All tenderest messages. Letter follows." That answer calmed Dolly's mind a little. She began to think after all, — if Walter still wanted her, — she loved him very much; she could hardly dismiss him. When she rose to go to bed, Herminia, very wistful, held out her white face to be kissed as usual. She held it out tentatively. Worlds trembled in the balance; but Dolly drew herself back w ith a look of offended dignity. " Never ! " '^^iim^m^-it»mMWf(ititKO(i^i!i^0if«s^Am^'^^'i, -^s-ffm-t^amiMfi' THE WOMAN WHO DID. 211 was she answered in a firm voice. "Never airaiii while I live. Yuu are not fit to receive a pure girl's kisses." And two women lay awake all that ensuini; night sobbing low on their pillows in the Mary- lebone lodging-house. 212 THE WOMAN WHO DID. XXII. It was half-past nine o'clock next morning when the man-servant at Sir Anthony Merrick's in llarley Street brouj^ht up to his master's room a plain hand-written card on which he read the name, ''Dolores Barton." "Does the i«**i«-'w.w«i' Tin: WOMAN WHO PIP. 219 could n't think of burdening; an honest man with sucli a mother-in-law as you arc! " Hcrminia could only utter the one word, "Dolly!" It was a heart-bnjken cry, the last despairing cry of a wounded and stricken creature. tl 220 THE WUMA.N WllU DID. XXIV. That night, Ilcrminia IJarton went up sadly to her own bed room. It was the very last night that Dolores was to sleep under the same roof with her mother. On the morrow, she meant to remove to Sir Anthony Merrick's. As soon as Herminia had closed the door, she sat down to her writing-table and began to write. Her pen moved of itself. And this was her letter : — "My Darmxg DAUGH'rER, — By the time yon read these words, I shall be no longer in the way, to inter- fere with your perfect freedom of action. I had but one task left in life — to make you hai)iiy. Now I find I only stand in the way of that object, no reason re- mains why I should endure any longer the misfortune of living. " My child, my child, you must see, when you come to think it over at leisure, that all I ever did was done, up to my lights, to serve and bless you. I thought, by giving you the father and the birth I did, I was giving you the best any mother on earth had ever yet given her dearest daughter. I believe it still ; but I see I should never succeed in making you feel it. Accept iir^'.~W>»^v:vt,.«fa c~!:'^*a-iTfaer ariiiaiiia TIIK WOMAN WHO niD, 221 this reparation. For all tlie wrong I may iiavc doiu', all the mistakes I may iiave made, I sincerely and ear- nestly im[)lore your forgiveness. I could not have had it while I lived; I beseech and pray you to grant me dead what you would never have been able to grant me living. " My darling, I thought you would grow up to feel as I did ; I ihought you would thank me for leading you to see such things as the blind world is incapable of seeing. There I made a mistake ; and sorely am I punished for it. Don't visit it upon my head in your recollections when I can no longer defend myself. " I set out in life with the earnest determination to be a martyr to the cause of truth and righteousness, as I myself understood them. But I didn't foresee this last pang of martyrdom. No soul can tell bcf )r','hand to what particular cross the blind chances of the uni- verse will finally nail it. But I am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is close at hand. I liave fought a good fight ; I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith I started in life with. Nothing now re- mains for me but the crown of martyrdom. My dar- ling, it is indeed a very bitter cup to me that you should wish me dead ; but 't is a small thing to die, above all for the sake of those we love. I die for you gladly, knowing that by doing so I can easily relieve my ov.-n dear litde girl of one trouble in life, and make her course lie henceforth through smoother waters. Be happy ! be happy ! Good-by, my Dolly ! Your mother's love go forever through life with you ! 'i'm^mtfi^^^.ip ;'j .-mh ■' 'J') "> 'II li: WOMAN WHO Din. -.MM " nuni this Muirnl notr tin.' inoinciU yon liavc read it. I inclose a inon' toiiiial nui'. L;i\inL; reasons for my act on other s^iouniis, to be pin in. it need be. a.t the coroner's inqnest. (lood ni^ht. my heart's darling. N'our truly devoted and alVectionalc Moniiu. "Oh, Dollv, my lX)lly, you never will knov with what love 1 lo\ed you." When she had finished that note, and folded it reverently with kisses and tears, she wrote the seeond one in a turn hand for the fi)rntal cvidenee. Then she put on a fresh white dress, rts pure as her own soul, like ti\e owe she had \V(>rn on the nii;ht ot her self-made briilal with Alan iMerriek. In her bost)ni she fastened two innoeent while roses Ironi Waller l>ivdi;es's bouquet, arran^ini; them with stuilious eare \'ery daititily befoie her miia-or. She was always a woman, "I'lU'liaps," she thoui;ht to herselt, "for her !t)\'er's sake, my Dolly will kiss them. Wh.en she thuls them hin^on her dead mother's breast, my Dolly m;y kiss them." Then she cried a few minutes very softly to herself; for no one can die without s^une little rei;rei, some consciousness of the unitiue solemnity of the occasion. At last she rose and moved over to her desk. Out of it she took a small glass-stoppered phial, li iHi> Miiiiii>»aiiia i:*m^wmm&i'iai»i TIIK WfniAX WHO \n\\ 223 that a sciontitic fticiul luul L;ivon her loni;- a,i;o for use in case of cxlri-nio diui \;;i'iuy. It con.- taincil prussic acitl. Slic luuiicil llic conU'iits into a L;Iass and thank it olf. Tlu'n slu- lay upon luT bcil and waitod tm- iho oid\- Iricnd sho had lot'l in thowoild, witii hanils loUKd on Ikt breast, like some saint ot tho middle aL;es. Not tor nothini;" does l)lind tatc \onchs;i!o snrh niaitvrs to hnnianity. h'rom their _>;raves shall sprini; L;lorions the ehureli ot the tntnre. When Didores eanie in ne\l nuunin- to say a-ood hv. she I'ound her mother's hiuly eoKi and St ill npon the bed, in a pnrc- white dress, with two ernsh.ed white roses jnst peeping; troin her h(nliee. Ilerininia barton's stainless soul had ceased to exist lorever. Tin; i:ni). wmm ■mmmm^m^smmmsmmimsmii^ THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT. BY ARTHUR MACHEN. KEYNOTES SERIES. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $i.oo. A couple of tales by Arthur Maclien, presumably an Englisliman, publisfied ^stlietically in this country by Roberts I'rotliers. 'I'hey are horror stories, the horror being of the vague psychologic kind and dependent, in each case, upon a man of science who tries to effect a change in individual personality by an o|)i,ration upon the brain cells. The implied lesson is i.;at it is dangerous and unwise to seek to probe the mystery separating mind and matter. These sketches are extremely strong, and we guarantee the "shivers" to any one wlio reads thetn. — Hartford Coiirani. For two stories o[ tiu; most marvellous and improbable character, yet told with wonderful realism and naturalness, the palm for this time will have to be awarded to Arthur Maclien, for "'i'he Great Clod Pan and the Inmost I.iglit," two stories just publislied in one book. They are fitting cump.inions to the famous stories by Kdgar Allan Poe both in matter and style. "The Great God I'an " is founded upon an experiment made upon a girl by whicli siie was enabled for a moment to see the god Pan, but with most disastrous results, the most wonderful of which is revealed ai the end opthe story, and which solution the reader will eagerly seek to reach. From the first mystery or tragedy follow in rapid succession. "I'he Inmost Light" Is eiiiially as remarkable for its imaginative power and perfect air of probability. Anything \\\ the legitimate line of psychology utterly pales before these stories of such plausibility. Boston Ifo)ite JonrnaL Precisely who the great god Pan of Mr. Machen's first tale is, we did not ([uite discover when we read it, or, discovering, we have forgotten; but our impression is tliat under the idea of that primitive great deity he imiiersonated, or meant to im- personate, the evil influences that attach to woman, the fatality of feminine beauty, which, like tlu countenance of tiie great god Pan, is deadly to all who behold it. His heroine is a beautiful woman, who ruins the souls and bodies of those over whom she casts her spells, being as good as a Suicide Club, if we may say so, to those who love her; and to whom she is Death. .Something like this, if not this exactly, is, we take it, the intorpret,\tion of Mr. Maclu-n's uncanny parable, which is too (jbscure to Justify itself as an imaginative cre.ition and too morbid to be the production of a iiealthy mind. The kind of writing wliich it illustrates is a bad one and this is one of the worst of the kind. It is not terrible, but horrible. - A'. //. .S". m tuail and Express. Sol J by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers. Lrri'Li:, brown, and CUMPANV, I5...sn)N. ",(i)iji**««i«*wi*%»*»'i«»*tV*»>« DISCORDS. 31 Uolumc of Storied. By GEORGE IXIERTON, author of " Keynotes/ AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION. i6mo. Cloth. PnVt\ $i.oo. George Es'^''''^"'s "cw volume entitled " Discords," a collection of short stones, Is more talked about, just now, than any otlier fiction <>f llie day. 'I'lie collection is really stories for story-writers. They are precisely the (lu.dity wiiieh literary tolk will wrangle over. Harold Frederic cables from I,(jndon to the " New Vork Times " that the book is making a profound impression there It is publisiied on both sides, the Roberts House bringing it out in Hoston. George Egerton, like George fc^liot and George Sand, is a woman's nom dc (ihime. Tiie extraordin iry frankness with which life !n general is discussed in these stories not unnaturally arrests attention — Lilian li'hitinff. The Knglish woman, known as yet only by the name of George P^gcrton, who made something of a stir in the world by a voiuinc of strong stories called " Keynotes," has brought out a new book under the rather uncomfortable title of " Discords." These stories show us pessimism run wild ; the gloomy things that can happen to a human being are so dwelt upon as to leave the impression th.it in the author's own world there is no light. The relations of the se.xes are treated of in bitter irony, which develops into actual horror as the pages pass. lUit in all this fliere is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysi,; of motive, and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Kgerton as one of the greatest women writers of the day. "Discords" has been called a volume of stones ; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying episo 'es in lives of men and wonen, with no plot, no beg:,,iiing nor ending. — Boston Traveller. This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains oi Teoree Egerton, the author of " Keynotes " Evidently the titles of the author's books are .selected according to musical principles. Tlie first st<.ry in the book is " A Psycho, logical Moment at 'I'hree Periods." It is all strength rather than sentiment. The Story of the child, of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the mysteries of the life of each are fami'iarly known. In their verv truth, as the writer has so subtly analyzed her triple char.aclers, they sadden one to think that such things must be ; yet as they are real, they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due time. The author betrays reniprkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects the human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature ma> instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and hypnotized by tlic treatment exhibited. — Courier Sold by all booksellers. Mailed I'v Publishers, LIT'lLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, Boston. MMimsmm-!& ■^■>p!mmm^..4i»-: lotes. short stcries, e collect i( 111 is L-rary folk will 'rimes " that oth sidus, ilie rge Eliot and ss with wliicli attention- — F*'gcrtoti, who " Keynotes," " Discords. " ha]ipL-n to a author's own r irony, which ; is a rugged )s that stamp • iscords" has lerely varying inj;. — Boston ins oi Oforce r's hooks are "A Psycho, fiment. The to wliom the as the writer It snch things \y and in due and h origin. ility, deep spiritual meaning, and exceptional power. It t.ilrlv buds, blossoms, .ind fiuits with suggestions tli.it >.eari h the Iium.ui spirit tliiouuh. No sitnil.ir production has come from the hand of auv author in our time. i'li.it I rancis Ad.inu. wnu'.d have carved out a remaik.ible career for hlni'-i'lf h,id he continued to live, this little v..lume, all compact with signilicmt suggestion, attests on many .i p.age. It exalts, inspires, comforts, and strengthens .ill tir^otlier It instructs by suggestion, spiritualizes the thuught by its elevating and puvitying narrative, and feeds the hungering spirit with food it is only too ready to accept and assinulate. Those who read its pages with an eag>M curiosity the first time will be pretty sure to return to them for a second slower nnd more meditative perusal The bonk is assuredlv the promis.. aiul potency of gieat things unattained in the too brief life- time of it, uifted author. We heartily cnunend it as a book not only of remarkable power, but as the product of a human spirit whose merelv intellectual gifts w.,Me but a fractional part of his inclusive spiritual endowments. -^ Bosfon Coiiyu-r. l!ut it is a remarkable work as a pathologicd study ahnost unsurpas.^ed. It produces the impression of a phot-.uraph from life, so vividly reaistic is the treatment. To this result the author's stvle, witli its lidelity of micro.scnpic del.ul, .loubtless contributes. — E7','nliic 'I'rarfih'f Thissforvbv Francis Adams is one to read sIo^^ly. and then to reul a second time. It is powerfullv written, full of str.mg suggestion, unlike, in fact, anything we have recentlv read. What he would have done in the w.,y of literary creation, had he lived, is, of course, only a niafer .,f conjecture What he did we have helore us ip tliis remarkable book. — Boston Advr'rtist'y. So/c/ by all Booksellers. Mailed hy tJw Publishers, MTTLF.. r.ROWN, .AND COMP.WV, Boston. ,»^T«»*^»»»n«B,,»,,«i^^v'^,!jjj^,,i;,,j^j^^ ^be Ikc^notes Series* J6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. r. KEYNOTES. I'.y Ci-okgk Ei.iuton. II. THE DANCING FAUN. I'.y I i okknck Fakk. IN. POOR FOLK. I'.y I kdok I)u-h;ii:v^kv. 'rian--l,Ue(l frDin tlie KiKM.in bv Lk.na Mii.ma.n. With an liitrdducliiiii by CiKoKdi.; IV. A CHILD OF THE AGE. Vv li; w. i-, .Ai.ams. V. THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT. liy Akthik .MAcniiN, VI. DISCORDS. I'.y (■.U(jkgk Kcekton. Vil. Pi'^INCE ZALESKI. \W M. !'■ Sinia.. VIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID. I'.v (m.ant Ai.i.kn. I.\. WOMEN'S TRA.GEDIES. I'.v II D. I..nvKv. X. GREY ROSES AND OTHER STORIES, i'.y Himv Hahianu XI. AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES. P.y ,11. li .M AKKli .IT W ATm).\ . XII MONOCHROMES. l'.y Ei.'.a D'Arcy. XIII. AT THE RELTON ARMS. I'v Kviu.vn Sharp. XIV. THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. i!y (Jiktiude Dix. XV. THE MIRROR OF MUSIC. IW Stani.kv V. Makuwer. XVI. YELLOW AND WHITE. Ily W. Caklk-.n I) a we. XVII. THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. I!y Fi. .na Ma( i.i ..d. XVI II. THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT. I'.y Vu icKtA Crossr. XIX. THE THREE IMPOSTORS. Hy Aktmir Maciie.n. XX. ."OBODY'S FAULT. I'.y Ni tta Svkett. XXI. PLATONIC AFFECTIONS. I'.y J.ii.v S.mith. XXII IN HOMESPUN. I'.y K. Nesiut. XXIII. NETS FOR THE WIND. I!v Una A Tavi.,!!. XXIV. WHERE THE ATLANTIC MEETS THE LAND. I!y Caidwem, Lll'SETT. XXV. DAY-BOOKS. Chnmicles of Coed and VMl P.v Maiiei. E. W..T|nN. XXVI. IN SCARLET AND GREY. Si,.rius of Snldicrs .md Otlins. Hv iM.oKE.N.E llE.NMKi K ; witli THE SPECTRE OF THE REAL, by Tuo.ma.s Haruv and I'iokenh-: IIenmker (in collahoialion). XXVII. MARIS STELLA. I'.y Makie Ci-otmiide Hai.ioir XXVIII. UGLY IDOL. I'.v (laid Nichoishn. XXIX. SHAPES IN THE FIRE. A Mid-Winter Entertainmunt. Witl, an IntL'ilude. Ily .M. 1'. Siiiel. Sc>/(/ h' all Booksellers. Maihil^ postpaid, on receipt of price, by the Pul>lis/iers, TJ'ITLK, BROWN, AND C^OIMPANY, r.osioN. John Line, The. Rodley Hpad. Vigo iSti'Prt. London. W. wm om tlie liy i THE DANCING FAUN. By FLORENCE FARR. IVith Title-page and Cover 'Desiifii by Aubrey Beardslej'. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. We welcome the light and merry pen of Miss Farr as cuie of the deftest that has been wielded in the style of to-day. She has written liic clcTerest and the most cynical sensation story nf the season, — Liverf'ool Daily /'ost. Slight as It s, the story is, in its way, stron:^. — Litrrary H\irld. F'liH of brigiit paradox, and i)aradox which is no mere to|)sy-tiirvv play upon words, but the product of serious tiiinking upon life. One ot the cleverest of recent novels. — Star. It is tuU of eiiigrammr.tic efTects, and it lias a certain tiiread of patlios calcu- lated to win our spnipathy. — Queen. Tiie story is subtle and psychological after the fasliion of mod' • i ji^ychology ; it is undeniably clever and smartly written. — GeiitU"voiiian. No one can deny its freshness and wit. huKed theie aie things in it here .nid tliere which John Oliver Hobbes herself might have >i;.;ned witiiout loss of repu- tation — // 'OIIUDI. There is a lurid power in the very unreality of tlie story. One does not quite understand how Lady Geraldine worked lier>elf up to shoi'ting her lover; but wiien siie has done it, the description of what jiasses through her mind is magnificent. — AthtHceiDit. Written by an obviously clever wmnaii — Black and IVhite. Miss I'arr has talent. '''I'he Dancing I'aun " contains writing th.it is distinc- tively good. Doubtless it is only a prelude to something much stronger. — Aeadeiny. As a work of art, the book has the tnerit of brevity and smart writing, while tile di'iioneinent is skilfully prejiared, and comes as a suri)ri^e If the book had been intended as a satire on tlie " new woniin " sort of literatuie, it would have been most brilliant; but assuming it to be written in earnest, we can heartily praise the form of its construction without agreeing with the sentiments expressed. St. yavii's's Gazette. Shows co-isiderable power and aptitude. — .Sattnday Review. Miss Farr is a clever writer whose appreniiceshii) at jilaywriting can easily be detected in the epigrammatic conversations with wliicli this book is filled, and whose ciiaracters expound a philosophy of life which strongly recills ().-,car Wilde's later interpretriiions. . . . 'I'lie theme f)f the tale is heredity develoiied in a most unpleasant manner. The leading itlea that daughters irdi> ril the father's qualities, good or evil, while sons resemble their motlier, is well sustained — Home Journal. Sold everjnvhert. Postpaid by publishers. LITTLE, BROWN, AxND COMPANY, Boston. :fi«,,*-»;.8«SifW»f»-.y*i-it-!i*!5^<- If A tSlKAXCili CAKLCliK. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN GLADWYN JEBB. BY HIS WIDOW. With an Introduction hy H. Ridki; HA(iC,AKD, and a por. trait of Mr. Jt'bl). i ^nio, cloth. Trice, ?i. 25. A remarkable minanco of niodtrn life. — Daily Chronicle Excitinj; td a deu^ree. — H.'nik tin J White. Full f)f briatliK-M^ intiie^t. — Fiinc'i. Reads like I'lctidii. — Daily Ciraf-liic. Pages which will hold their readers fa^.t to the very end. — Graphic. A better told and more marvellous narrative of a real life w.i^ never put Uito the covers of a sma'l octavo volume. — To-Day. As fascinating .is any rom.mce. , . . The book is of the most entranc- ing interest. — .V/. Janice's IhiJ^rt. Those who 1o\l' stories of adventure will find a volume to their taste in tlie " Life and .Ailventures of John (_iladwyn Jebb," just jMiblished, and to which an introduction is furnished by Rider Ihiggard. The Litter says th.it i.uxlv, if ever, in tiiis nineteenth centurv, has a man livctl so str in ge and N.uied an e\iste'nce as did Mr. [ebb. l''rom the time that In; came t( manhood lie was a wanderer daily life is cei'taiidv a mvsterv, d I uui now he sur\ive'd the nuiny [lerils of his The stiange and remarkable adven- tures of wliich we have an account in this volume weie in Ciuatemala, Ura/.il, in our own tar West \sith the Indi.uis nn the plains, in mining cami)s in Colorado and (ialifornia, in Te.xas, in Cuba and Me.xico, where occurred the search for Montezuma's, or rather (iuatenioc's treasure, to which Mr. Haggard believes that Mr. Jebb held the key, but whicli through his death is now t'orever lost. The story is one of thrilling interest from beginning to end, the story of a born adventurer, unseltish, sanguine, romantic, of a man too mystical and pontic in his nature for this prosaic nineteenth cen- tury, but who, as a crusader or a knight errant, won Id lave won dist mguis hed success. The volume is a notable addition to the literature of adventure. — Boston Advertiser. Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed., postpaid., by the pub- Ushers, LITTLE, T]RO\VN, AND COMPANY, Boston. I • 1! iiWit-ffi-iii ^M, - ^^:*vk';'s^^^'rJn'ky^-r>> ^. POOR FOLK. 5 OF B. k1 a por. ''5- rninshUcd fn;m the Russian of Im'.dor Dostoievsky, by I-KNA Mil, MAX, Willi decora lyvc litlei)agc and a <:rili- cal introduction by Gi;()k(;L: Ab)(jKE. American Copyright edition. 16mo. Cloth. $1.00. rafhic. . never put ■^t entraiic- ■ir taste in led, and to •liter says 50 straiisre e came to rils of !ii,s ile advcn- la, lirazil, camps in occurred hich Mr. liis death beginnint; in tic, ot a LMith cen- in^uished dventure. he ptib- OSTON. A capnblc critic writes : " ()„e of the most heautifd. toiiclnns stories I have read, 'I'h.; character of the o'.d clerk is a ina-tcrpicce, a kind of Russian Charles Lamb. He remiiuls me, too, of Anatole France's ' SyivLv.tre Humiard,' but it IS a more poii;nant, movni- li-ure II, nv wouderfullv, too, the sad little strokes of humor are bleiKk-d into the [;ath,.s in his characterization, and how lascinatmj,' all the naive self-reveiati(;ns of his poverty become, - all liis many ups and downs and hopes and fears. His unsucce-^stul vnit to the nioncvlendcr, his despair .it the office. nne\i,ected!y endin- in a sudden burst of k'ood fortune, the Una! despair- ing; cry of Ins love tor V.irv.ira. these hold one bre.i'hlcss One can liardly read thein without tear.s. . . , lint tliere is no need to v all that could be said about the hook. It is enough to say that it is over poweiml and iieautilnl." We ,ire glad to welcome a good translation of the Ru.ssi.ui Dostoiev.sV y's Story •' Por.r folk," Knglished by Lena .Mdm.in. It i.s a tale of unrequifed love conducted m the • „ ni of letter.-, written between ,i poor clerk and his girl cousin whom he devotedly loves, ,ind who finally leaves inm to marry a m.ni iiot idmir- able m ch.u.icter who, the reader feels, will not nuike her hipov. The p.ithos of the book centres in the elerk, ,M,ik,ir's, unseilish atfectioii .md his he.irt-break .': being lett lonesome by his charming kinswoman whose epistles have been iii', one solace. In the condiictnient of the si sian lite are gi realistic sf a sparkling introduction t heighlenmg the effect of the den e!clies of middle c lass K .0 the book. — Ifiirf/ord Couraut. ouinent. (Jeorge Moore writes Dostoievsky is a gre.it aitist, *' 1' Advertiser. n Folk is a great novel — Boston It i s a nios after the book is closed, 'I t beautiful and touching story, and will inger in the mind long pathos is blended with, touching bits of humor. ves. Boston fillies. that are even pathetic in themsel Notwithstanding that "Poor Folk" is told i, that entirely unreal style — by letter :)es not Ikig as tiie various phases in t It IS complete in seqnenc most cxaspernting and and tl interest developed. The theme is inti 'le sordid lite of ihe t\ lent is exceedingly artistic. The t nsely pathetic and tnilv 1 wo eharacters are luinan, w hil. Its tre.it- ranslato i^eserved the spirit of the original — Cambt-id^-e Tr r, Lena .Mil man, seems to iiave welJ •bii ■ne. LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, Boston. *''t3«mp.*#*«6«W«««!#,i,%'J»- KEYNOTES. IT^olumc of &tonc0» By GF.ORdF. Egkkton. With titlepage by Auhrev Beardsli:v. iGnio. Cloth. Price, $i.oo. ^^1; i 1 i ' i. i • 1 Not since " Tlie Story of an African Farm" was writtuii lias any unman da- livered herself of so sironj;, so forcible a hi ok. —- (Jiu-ru. Knotty questions in sex piobleins are ikak witli in ili.sc brief '-kuielies. Tiiey are treated boldly, fe.iilcssly, peril. ips we may say forcefully, with a deep pliiii);e into the realities of life. I'he colors are laid in masses on ihe canvas, while passions, temperaments, and sudden, siditle analyses take form under the cjuick, sharp stroke. Though they contain a vein of co.irseness and touch slightly upon tabooed subjects, they evidence power and thouj^ht. — riiblic Of'inio'i Indeed, we do nut hesitate to say thai "Kevnotes'' is the stronupst volume of short stories that the year lias pvorlnced. I'urthcr, we would wa.;er a good deal, were it necessary, that tleor.ue Kuerton i> a iioni-de-p'unie, and of ,i woman, too. Why is it that so many women iiide beneath a man's name when they enter the field of authorsliip? And in this case it seems doubly foolish, tiie work is so intensely strong;. . . . The chief characters of tliese stories are women, and women drawn as only a woman can draw woi d-i)ictiires df lier owii sex. The subtlety of aii.ilysis is wonderful, direct in its effi-ciiveiiess, unerrint; in its truth, and slirrinj; in its reveal- ing power. Truly, no one but a woman could thus ilirow the light ot levelaiion upon her own sex. Man does not llnder^tand woman as does the author of " Kevnotes." 'I'he vitality of the stnries, too, is remark. ible. Life, very real life, is pictured ; life full f)f joys and sorrows, happinesses and heartbreaks, courage and self-s,ici ifice ; of self-abnegation, of >in]ggle, of victurv- The characters are intense, \el not overdrawn ; the experiences are dramatic, in one seii-^e or another, and yet are never hypei-emntion.il. And all is told with a [lower of cniicentr.ition that is bimply astoni--hing. A sentence does duty for a chapter, a iiaragra[)h fur a picture of years of experience. Indeed, for vigor, originality, forcefuliiess of expression, and completeness of character present. ition, " Keynotes" surpasses any recent volume of short fiction that we can recall. — 7'iiiics, Hoston. It brings a new (juality and a striking new force into the literature of the hour. — The S/'i\ikrr. The mind that cnnceived " Keynotes" is so strong and original that one will look with deep interest for the successors appealingly feminine. — Irish Independent, f this first book, at once powerful and Sold by all hooksi'llers. ^^ailcli^ post-paid, on receipt cif price by the Publishers^ LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, Boston. iiat. wm •.■...■,.1. ^T.-»n-», » r^y » .-; -■^..1—^.^ .t-.. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S WORKS. .00. y woman do- :iLlie'^. Tliey deep iilmijje iiivas, while cr the (|iiick, s!igl)tly upon 7. iKcst volume \a,;;er a good of .1 womnii, II they enter le wiirk is so wu as only a analysis is in its reveal- it levelatioii e author (if s pictured ; lf-s,icrilk'e ; se, Ml not aiif] yet are tioii that is or a picture ileteness of hort fiction tiiru of the lat one will werful and ' receipt xy, iOSTON. TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES ( I 'a pel Willi a l-'roiitispifcc Illustration by Wai.ikr Crank cover, 50 cents.) lOnuj. ;pi 00. Mr. Stevenson's jtiiirney in the C'evetmes is a bright .uid anui>iiij; book for - ninier tcadmi;- 1 lie author set out ....iue, on foot, for a twelve d.iys' journey over the mountains, with a donkey to carry his luj;- RaK'e. lie was deplorably ii;norant. neither km iw inj; how to pack his li lad nor driv e his donkey; and iii^ early experience fotins » rulicidoub recoid of disaster. — i''<(»:7sion of a miner's cabin fast falling to ruin, — one of the few rem- nants of the abandoned mining village of Silverado. There, with his wife and a single '-ervant, considerable time was spent. The interest of the book centred in the giaphic style and keen ol)servation of the author. He has the power of desciibing places and characters with ^llch vividness that you seem to have made personal aci|uaiiitance witli both . . . Mr .Steven- son's r.icv narrative brings many phases o( lite upon the western coast belnre one with striking power and captivating grace. — yew i'ork li'orlii. TREASURE ISLAND. A Siory of i'iratfs and the Spanish Main. With 28 Illustrations. 121U0. (i'aprr covers, 50 cents.) •5. Cheaper edition. i6nio. $1.00. details the stirring adventures (jf an Kng. lish crew in their >e.ircli for the immense tre.isnre secreted by a pirate cajitain, and it certainly h.ts not a dull page in it \'et the author has contrived to keep the sym- l)atliy on the sirie of virtue and honest v, and throw uiion the pirates that odium and detC'^tation which their nefarious courses deserve: and the Ix.ok is one heartily to be commended to any sturdy, whr>les<)me lad uIk) is fond of the smell of the brine .ind the tang of sailor speech in his read- ing. — Host OH Courier. At a time when the books of Mayne Reid, r.allantyne, and Kingston are t ikitig their jilaces 011 the shelves to uhich well- thumbe,'••''*' GEORGE MEREDITH'S NOVELS. Mr. *",ef)iKe Mereditli is tlie greatL-st lui^li^Ii novelist living;; lie is probalily tlie HiiMtL'st iinvoii>t of our tiini;. He is a man of guniiis, a literary artist, and a truly };rfat writer. — The lieacnn. Since tlie (lavs i>f riiatkeray, 1 )ickeiis, and (iei>ri;e Kliot tlieri' lias net ai)|)eareriniiiall\ writlrii without iiiiitilatioii- Libraries or ))rivate buyers who wish to obt.im tlie peilect. imiforin <-'iition of Mr. .Meredith's early works at a remarkably low price should apjily to their local bookseller or to the publishers direct. SOME PRESS NOTICES. Mr. Meredith's novels aiean intellectnal tonic. 'I'lux uc the <;reat, and inderd we inav say, they are the onlv novels of any living author whiih deserve to hi- called ;;reat. They will take t'.e same lii,:;h and iierin.ment rank that is nssij;iK(! to the novels of (!eori;e Kliot '..d (;eor^;e Sand. They are deeper in intelle' 1 power than J )ickens, while thev have less of his dramaii/.iiions. They are an ciiial mine, and will repay careful studv. — Hoston I'mrclu-r. The London '* Allien. euni " says of " Diana ot" the Cross. >.,^-. ': "It is a study of cliar.icter, and it is also a study of emotion ; it is a |)ictinc of fact aiid of the world, and it is touched with '.;eneroiis roin.ince: it is rich in kindly comedy, and it ahoimds in natural passion; it sets forth a seiectnin of many lininan elements, and it is joyful and sorrowful, wholesome uith l,»u.;liter, .uid fruillul of tear-- .is lite itself" Mr. .Meredith's novels eerl.unly have the (|ii.ilitiLs which we marked as essential to permanent literature. They can set before you pictures of hap|iy love, or of voutli and nature that can never be liirv;otten ; scenes that Hash before your eyes when your tlioui;hts are elsewheie. . . . Whoever reads .Mr. .Meredith docs luit waste his time. He is in j»ood company, anionj; gentleuie.i and ladies; above all, in the company of a genius. — Diily Xrws. Cienius of a truly origin. il and spontaneous kind shines in every one of these books; of f'aiK y there is only too much, perhaps; with liealthy beiuvolent svmpatliy they abound ; and if there exists anv greater master of his native tongue than Mr. .Meredith, we have yet to hear of the gentleman's n.une. - - .S7. James Cia.A'tte. It was not until i'^; i, when he had re.uhed the age ot thirty-two, that he I'roduced " The Ordeal of ivicii.ird Feverel," his first mature novel, cli.irged to the brim with earnestness, wit, strength of conception. Meredith's stories generally end happily; but this one is profoundly tragic. I have read maiiv of his diapters without being moved, even when the situation in itself must theoretirallv be acknowledged an atfecting one. Iiut it seems to me that the heart which is not tMuclird, and the eves that do not become moist, in the reailing of the last portions of '" Rich.ird Feverel," must be indurated with a gla/.e of indifference which is not to be envied. — G. P. LatiikoJ", in Atlantic Monthly. 12 Volumes, English Edition, uncut, lamo Price, $1.50. 12 VoUirnes, English Edition, half calf. Extra, $30 00 the set. 12 Volumes, Popular American Edition, i5mo, cloth. Price $1.00. LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, Boston. ■ •MI- HfiUS. II III A.\S. lii^ earliest iniitilation. 11 e'iitidii (if .0 tlicii local n] incleid we (.rlecl i;icat. lie tlnvils of laii I liikeiis, lie, and will s a study of e world, and aljoiiiids m is joyfiij and essential to ii( youth and wlieti your Ue his time. |)any of a oni hese hooks : iipathv thev Ml ith, le produced ; hrirn with ipily lUt -•inj; moved, Ifeciint; one. It 1 )ecome luratcd with ill At/iiHtic 1.00. NY, 1)( ).STON. -■^^•:.^«MM:,vmm^mm^ii!^jm'^!