"Dear Friend.—Thank you a thousand times for your kindness to a poor friendless girl. I have found a good place with a lady, so I send you back what you so generously lent me. God bless you, dear friend."Believe me, Yours gratefully,"MARY GRIMM."
"Dear Friend.—Thank you a thousand times for your kindness to a poor friendless girl. I have found a good place with a lady, so I send you back what you so generously lent me. God bless you, dear friend.
"Believe me, Yours gratefully,"MARY GRIMM."
For the first time in his life, Hudson knew what it was to be bitterly disappointed and angry on receiving back money that he had lent.
Two years have gone by and Mary is still living with Catherine King. She is taller than she was, and of perfect figure. Her face seems less sad than before. Her mouth has lost much of its hardness, but perhaps her eyes have not got all their old pathos, their look that besought sympathy. There is a strange thoughtfulness in her expression. It is a face calm and inscrutable—a face more beautiful than ever.
She is not dressed shabbily now, but in a well-fitting though simple dress. She is delicately shod, and her hair is no longer cut in a fringe, but the glorious auburn mass is tied up behind in a neat knot that sets off to advantage the well-shaped head. She forms altogether as delicious a picture as the eye of man could dwell on.
Her education has been progressing all this time under the tuition of Catherine King; and never was a girl so curiously educated. Her mind was fed solely on such food as Logic, Compte's "Religion of Humanity," and what her teacher was wont to rather sarcastically call "OurPolitical Economy," for it was not the orthodox science of Mill and Fawcett, but the wild revolutionary doctrines of the Socialists, and of such apostles of Land Nationalization as Mr. George and his crew.
Catherine King had proceeded cautiously with the girl, had gradually moulded her to her will, and by well-directed conversation had imbued her with her own enthusiasm on these matters.
Mary was at first much perplexed, and did not know what to make of all this new light. But the great gratitude and affection she entertained for her benefactress inclined her to listen to her teaching with patience and attention, and in time these ideas began to interest her, and to fill with suggestions her intelligent mind.
She was soon brought to imagine that she clearly perceived the gross iniquity and injustice of all existing institutions. She began to feel a hot indignation against those that accumulate wealth, against the persecuting hypocritical churchmen, against those that make laws, only to oppress the poor and protect the rich rogues from meeting their deserts. She became as bitter a little radical as could well be found.
She was rather shocked when Catherine King set to work, to prove to her that religion was a pack of fables, another instrument in the hands of the rich to oppress and rob the poor, to keep them ignorant, and frighten them with its bogies into obedience to authority.
There was a long struggle in her mind before the arguments of the clever and sincere enthusiast convinced her that mankind knows nothing of a God, that there is no reason to believe in one.
Her woman's instincts revolted against a good deal of all this at first. She did not feel comfortable when it was suggested to her that morality was but another creation of superstition; that marriage was a terrible evil productive of infinite misery; that were this loathsome institution abolished, and were the sexes allowed to enter into temporary arrangements recognised by law, which could be broken off when the parties wearied of each other, there would be little of that gross vice which was undermining society, especially at the present time, when the new conditions of life made the marriage-tie an intolerable burden that few young men would undertake to bear, and which was quite out of the reach of the many.
Thus was that one side of sociology, which is for destruction and radical change, put before the young girl's wondering reason; and though her common-sense caught glimpses sometimes of the other side also, and though she would often venture to ask very puzzling questions, and point out fallacies in the course of a conversation, yet, as was natural, the intellectual weight of the elder woman told in the long run and Mary was gradually brought over to agree in theory with Catherine's wildest views. However, it remained still to be seen whether the convert would be logical or foolish enough to approve of their being carried into practice, for that is quite another matter.
Catherine King had acquired a great influence over Mary, not by working on her gratitude, which was deep, but by the intense strength of her character. She inspired her pupil with a respect, an awe, an unreasoning devotion, a sense of inferiority, more like the sentiment which a girl entertains for the man she loves, than for one of her own sex.
Yet Mary was of a nature the reverse of weak; but it happened that Catherine, like some others who have lived her life of stern self-denial, of passionate and maddening thought, through many long silent hours of concentration on one great object, had developed a sort of mesmeric power over her fellow-beings.
The will of the girl was paralysed in the presence of that other mightier will, and became as weak as water. This influence became stronger daily, as the two women saw more of each other—as their spirits entered into closer communion.
Sometimes after a long afternoon's earnest discussion on theonetopic, in the mystic between-lights, a strange feeling would steal over Mary. It was as if her soul had gone out of her, as if she was but a body having sensation only. Hearing the low, monotonous words as they fell from her mistress's lips, but not understanding them, her soul, her will, seemed to be away—tobe in Catherine, to be for the timewiththe other's mind, receiving its impressions, echoing its workings—to return to her again when the spell was over; but different from what it had been, modified by that strange visit, and having brought with it a portion of that other's nature, a portion which was to cleave to it for ever.
Catherine herself was not conscious of this power at first, but when she discovered it she did not fail to make use of it, and to employ all methods to increase the fascination.
She herself returned to a great extent the girl's affection; she became, to her own surprise, greatly attached to her, fonder of her than she had ever been of any other human creature.
Alas! it was no happy outlook for the ill-fated girl that her will should become the helpless slave of the will of a dangerous mad woman.
No other woman could have persuaded the child against her instincts that there was no God, no good—not that she had known much of either in her short life.
Such was the education for which Mary was indebted to her new friend, one that, coming after her Brixton bringing-up, well tended to develop a strange character—unwomanly, unnatural. She had never known a mother's love, never had a doll when a child, or a dream of a hero when a girl.
Very skilful and cunning was the method employed by the Chief of the Secret Society in the training of her pupil. She did not too precipitately disclose to her the more startling doctrines of her creed. Step by step she prepared her mind.
Thus one day, after Mary had been more than a year with her, the Malthusian doctrine was the subject of a long conversation between the woman and the girl.
"Timid—yes of course they are timid!" the teacher was saying, in reply to some remark of the pupil—"all our English democrats are so. They see what ought to be, they even hint vaguely at it, but they never dare speak out.
"No one doubts that over-population is the great curse of the world—they all allow it. Look at the horrors, the misery it produces in this very city. And what are the remedies suggested?
"How silly, how weak they are! Read Mill; he saw clearly what we were coming to, and all he has to recommend as a remedy is prudence in marriage, and such restrictions. This is nonsense, cheese-paring; besides, if feasible, it would only lead to ten times the vice there is now.
"No, the passion of the beast man is a constant factor in the problem that cannot be disregarded. Bradlaugh had a little more pluck—spoke out; and how were his words received!
"There is only one way of getting out of the difficulty, but that is one that our virtuous politicians of to-day would never entertain: make it an offence for anyone to have more than one child; let it be lawful to kill a new-born infant, and to employ those other measures for preventing a woman from becoming a mother which are now felonies in the eyes of the law."
Mary half understood and shuddered. She said, thoughtfully, "I suppose that is the only remedy; but it can never be carried out—it is, after all, too horrible."
"Horrible!" exclaimed the teacher. "Not at all; that is, if you look fairly at the question. You are biased by old prejudices. Your reason will gradually shake them off, as mine has long ago. We are Utilitarians, we look to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Now by the methodwepropose of checking population, we inflict no pain. We prevent a multitude of creatures coming into the world only to be miserable, so there is left a less crowded, a happier race, not slaving as now to keep starvation off, and often failing even to do that, while a few fatten on the product of their labour."
She paused a moment to watch the effects of her words on Mary's face, then continued: "Man will then know what leisure is, will become a nobler being; not a slave running a race forbread with machinery. Ah, Mary! and they call the measures that alone can bring about this happy consummation cruel, immoral, criminal. It is the religion—the accursed morality—that tyrannizes over the people, and forces a man and woman to keep alive their wretched offspring, that is cruel."
With such conversation did the woman prepare Mary's mind, until, after they had been two years together, the girl was familiarized with all the perilous fallacies of the Nihilists, and accepted the theory that murder is no sin when necessary for the enfranchisement of mankind, whether it be the secret execution of the tyrants by poison, knife, and dynamite, or the practical exposition of the Malthusian doctrine by the destruction of babies.
And now the teacher considered that the pupil's mind was ripe, that she could be intrusted with thesecret of the aim, and was ready to be an actor in the terrible drama which the Sisterhood was preparing.
At last the day of initiation came. It was a windy, rainy day of the spring equinox—a day of tempest and disaster.
Catherine and Mary had been confined to the house all the day.
In the afternoon the hurricane increased in fury, and the wind raved so loudly without that the two sat in silence for some time in the little parlour, awed and impressed.
The wild sounds of the storm with its fitful gusts seemed to harmonize well with the thoughts of Catherine King. She sat by the table with her brow knit, her eye glittering, and her lips curling occasionally into strange smiles, as pictures of the work of vengeance that was to be, thronged to her busy brain.
Then her eyes falling on Mary, she watched the girl furtively for some minutes, carefully deliberating, till at last she came to a decision, and spoke.
"Mary!"
"Yes, Mrs. King," replied the girl with a slight start.
"I want to have a long talk with you. In the first place, did you read that article on land nationalization in the ——Reviewwhich I gave you yesterday; and if so, what do you think of it?"
"Yes, I have read it carefully," said Mary, "but I am not sure that I properly understand it. The writer appears to me to hardly know his own mind. He says he does not advocate confiscation, and yet the hints he throws out as to the working of his scheme seem to me to really imply confiscation under another name."
"Of course," said Catherine, "that's just like these cautious politicians; they don't want straightforward confiscation, and yet they are dimly conscious that by confiscation only is land nationalization practical. It requires little thought to come to that conclusion. How on earth could the state possibly afford to compensate the landlords—where would the money come from? Capitalists would be shy to lend at three per cent. to a government that was passing such sweeping measures."
"And supposing they did raise the money," said Mary, "what an oppressive taxation would be necessary in order to pay the interest!"
Catherine spoke with impatience:
"It's not worth while discussing that matter over again, Mary; it's too plain. For a state to take possession of the land, and compensate the landlords for it, is merely taking money out of one pocket to put in the other, and dropping half of it on the way too."
"I suppose they will see that at last," Mary said; "but do you think, Mrs. King, that we are near land nationalization? Don't you think that confiscation of property is unfortunately a long way off yet?"
"I do not think it is far off," replied the chief. "I do not mean that the State will dispossess the proprietors at once by one violent measure, though I wish the people were strongenough to do so; but all is tending the right way at present. You see, Mary, this land nationalization is a very important step indeed. It will be far the heaviest blow that democracy has ever struck at aristocracy. It is land that keeps these great families together. Once we have destroyed the aristocracy of land we can concentrate our energies on the destruction of the aristocracy of wealth, we will abolish capital."
Mary thought a little and then said:
"In that pamphlet on the "International" which you gave me to read, Mrs. King, there is an extract from a speech of Bakounine. Let me see—here it is," and she took the book from the table and read: "After the rights of private property in land have been got rid of, society must be wound up; that is, we must abolish the political and judicial system, which is the only sanction and safeguard of present proprietors. We must take back everything we can seize, just as fast as we can seize it, as events shall open out a way."
"Exactly so," went on Catherine. "Ah! it is amusing to observe what blind fools these capitalists, these manufacturers, these employers of labour are. For the sake of power they have coquetted with Revolution. They have called themselves Liberals and Radicals. They have become our allies in our fight with the landed interests. Little do the idiots imagine that they are but the tools of the Internationalists and of the Nihilists, that they have to go to Limbo with the rest. We shall soon be strong enough to dispense with the aid of these wealthy hypocrites who prey on the people, swallow the results of their toil, and then delude them with their windy talk, their sham-Liberalism, their rant about Political economy. The day is not far off when they will bitterly regret that they have helped us destroy their only allies, and so left themselves defenceless, an easy prey for us when the day of vengeance comes."
After a pause Mary spoke: "How strange it is, Mrs. King,that Political Economy was once actually looked upon as a Liberal science, was stigmatized as Revolutionary by the Tories, and now it is clearly seen to be quite the reverse."
"That is it!" exclaimed Catherine. "Political Economy is the cleverest snare the capitalists ever set for the unsuspecting people. It professes to be so Liberal, so philanthropical, and tries to persuade the workers that capital is their best friend without whose assistance they would starve. It is one great organized lie invented by the rich to delude the poor. The Political Economists, though favourable to the rights of property in all else, questioned the tenure of land and undermined the old sanction that supported that right. This science has been a useful weapon against the landed proprietors, but it is useless against the capitalists. Its arguments are specious enough. It does not appeal to first principles, to ancient sanction as the landowners do. It does not try to prove that the manufacturer has arightto his vast gains, so disproportionate to those of the real workers, but it sets to work to try and prove that such a system is positivelygoodfor the labourers,betterindeed than any other system would be."
"Do you think, Mrs. King, that there will soon be any really Radical alterations in the tenure of land?" asked the pupil.
"Mary, I know it," replied the teacher with a voice of conviction, "I know it. The general election that is coming will give us an enormous majority in the House of Commons. The moderate Liberals are struck with panic, foreseeing what will happen. The timid leaders of that party feel that they will be powerless to stem the tide. In a few months a bill will be driven through Parliament that will astonish the world."
"But then there is the House of Peers," suggested Mary. "Will the Lords let the bill through?"
"The Lords!" exclaimed Catherine with a contemptuous laugh. "Don't talk to me about the Lords, they will be too frightenedabout their skins to dare to offer a long resistance to the will of the people. Now, Mary, the most important clauses of this great measure will be to the following effect: any alienation of real property by sale, gift, testament, or otherwise shall be void unless it be to an immediate descendant of the holder, except when under certain circumstances the land courts shall sanction or command a sale for the public good. In failure of any descendant or of such sanction of the land court, the land will become the property of the State on the holder's decease—you understand?"
"I understand," said Mary rather disappointed, for she expected to hear something far more startling than this. "But it is not much, even a moderate like Mill proposed nearly as much as that."
"Mary," continued Catherine King looking steadfastly at the girl, "it does not sound much, but nevertheless it is the death-blow to property. I too would like to see all the old tyrannies swept away at once, but that cannot be, the country is not ripe enough for that. Now, Mary, you must remember that there are two methods by which politicians bring about their ends.
"The first method is that which all the world sees and hears—the open action—agitation—the press—debate—culminating in an Act of Parliament.
"The second method is secret—this is the work in the dark that, going far beyond the timid public opinion as represented by Parliament, dares great things.
"So we of this Sisterhood, and hundreds of similar associations all over Europe, are ever on the watch.
"Our allies—the politicians that work openly, that employ thefirstmethod—prepare the way for us, loosen the foundations of tyranny in Parliament. Then we come—we that employ thesecondmethod, and complete their work.... Now follow me. This will be the result of this new Bill. Unless a landed proprietor have children, his estate will lapse to the State on his death."
She paused, and the eyes of the two women met.
Mary had never before seen such an expression in the bright black eyes of Catherine King. Their pupils were dilated. They blazed with a fierce intensity of purpose, of passionate thought. They were the eyes of a madwoman, but a madwoman with a terrible method in her madness.
She continued in slow, deliberate tones: "Now, after this Act is passed, supposing that the Secret Societies such as ours come in andprevent the landed proprietors from leaving children, what will happen? In a generation or two all the land will be in the hands of the people. Do you follow me?"
"I think so," replied Mary, in a low voice.
Catherine proceeded: "Such a scheme may sound impracticable to you at first, but it is anything but that. We have gone thoroughly into it. It does not, to begin with, necessitate nearly so manyremovalsof heirs as you would imagine. You would be surprised to find what a very large proportion of the land would be recovered by the people in the space of a few years by no more than say thirty well-selectedremovals. A little study of the pages of Debrett would soon convince you of this. The object of our Society is to assist the working of the coming Act of Parliament by effecting these removals, do you knowhow?"
Mary had anticipated for many months a revelation of this kind. She was not taken by surprise, but she turned very pale and said: "How, Mrs. King?"
The dreaded moment had come at last, and she felt even as if she was going to die as she listened to her mistress, who spoke again in calm but thrilling tones.
"Mary, I know you well enough to trust you now. When you were enrolled some months ago as a member of our Sisterhood, you were informed what would be the penalty of disclosing what was told to you."
"Death," said Mary, looking up with a brave smile. "It is death, I know that."
"I do not mention this because I in any way doubt you. I believe in you as in my own self. If you are not true, no one in the whole world is. But it is my duty to remind you of your promise and the consequences of treason before I reveal to you the secrets of the Inner Circle. Now the time has come, and you shall know our immediate plan. You already know how far-spreading our organization is. You know that we have been training nurses—nurses for the sick and nurses for children—and domestic servants of all classes. You know how we have scattered these over the country, and how many there are now at our disposition, provided with excellent characters and entirely devoted to our cause. Have you ever wondered—have you ever guessed what all this was for?... I can see by your face that you have done so.... At the proper time the secret is revealed to each of these, even as I now reveal it to you. We seek to find places for these sisters in different capacities, but chiefly as nurses in the houses of the wealthy landowners—especially those houses in which the heirs are yet to be born, or are children. Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"For the means, we have to thank Sister Jane—a method safe, impossible of detection, by which the life that is in the way of social good can be extinguished, painlessly too.... Yes, it is more like sleep than death;" and when she spoke of death the woman's voice became tender, the fire of her eyes was dimmed, as a far-away look came into them, and she sighed.
It seemed as if she was envying the peaceful fate of the babies she was devoting to an early grave. No wonder that she felt weary at times beneath all that weight of fierce thought, of subtle plot, of disappointment. Death was no gloomy shadow to this poor distracted mind.
Then she pulled herself together again, and said, in a dreamy voice: "Mary, these Christians believe that their merciful Godkilled all the first-born of the Egyptians in one night because they had enslaved his people and would not let them go. But that slavery was as nothing to that of the down-trodden millions of Europe."
The young girl felt as if her heart was becoming cold and dead within her, but her will was not hers, and she believed altogether in the righteousness of the cause. Sheknewthat it was herdutyto become one of the assassins—to save humanity by being a baby-killer.
So, Mary—Mary! Heavens! what a name for a child-murderer!—bowed her head meekly, and said in a low, passionless voice—a voice that was without modulation, sounding automatic, as if from one in a trance, one not knowing the sense of what she said:
"I will do all you say ... you have me ... body and soul."
Catherine looked at the white fixed features, and felt a keen pang of compunction. She came to her senses for a moment.... What was this thing she was doing? ... sacrificing this poor girl—this one creature that she loved.... But then she loved her creed still better; and there was none who could be so useful to the cause as this her pupil; so she stifled her emotion, and said in a voice grave and collected as ever, while she rose from her chair:
"To-morrow, Mary, you shall receive full instructions from the Inner Circle. Sister Eliza will explain to you what you have to do."
"I will do all that I am ordered," replied the girl in the same strange absent tone as before. "Yes, all ... anything...."
Then suddenly the nature of her duties rose to her mind with such appalling distinctness that for the moment she was overwhelmed by the horror of the vision.
She rose quickly from her chair and paced up and down the room, her face quite colourless, one hand pressed to her painfullyworking heart.... Then, with a cry which seemed full of all the anguish that humanity is capable of, she threw herself at the feet of her mistress, who stood looking at her with a stern sadness. She lay there on the ground, her head hidden in her hands, and the piteous words came out between her choking sobs.
"Oh, why was I ever born?... Why were any men or women ever born? Let me die at once; life is too horrible.... Oh, mistress! Oh, mother! you say you love me; kill me now then; kill me at once, and spare me this life—this terrible life."
But Catherine had now steeled her heart. She hardly heard the pitiful pleading. Her soul was filled with a wild enthusiasm as she thought of her long-matured schemes, now so soon to bear fruit. She was possessed with theidea... she stood there at her full height; a stately figure, with her face illumined by the inspiration, having a nobility, a glory in it, such as even saints and martyrs have worn. Her thoughts were too exalted just then for her to pay heed to the victim at her feet, and she said nothing, offered no consolation.
After this wild first burst of anguish had partly passed, another mood seized the girl. She leaped to her feet, and with eyes aflame with hate, and teeth set, exclaimed:
"Oh! oh! if there is a God how I hate him—no man, no devil could be as cruel as He is! Why has He made all this misery? Why has He created us at all? He has arranged things so that in order to save mankind from still worse suffering we have to kill innocent children. Oh, mother! we had better all die at once and leave the world to wild beasts."
Then her former mood returned again, and she threw herself upon the sofa, weeping bitterly, and her whole body was convulsed with grief and despair.
Catherine King had foreseen that such a mental struggle would come to Mary when the "secret of the aim" was putbefore her clearly for the first time. Her experience in other cases led her to hail this paroxysm as a favourable symptom.
All the initiated had to go through this agony when the supreme moment came. This was usually the last, shortest, but fiercest struggle between the old nature and the new—the old nature of religious instincts, Christian sympathies and pities, and the new nature that sought to break through all the tyrannies, to be free of God, of evil and remorse.
It was an unnatural contest that would rend the poor spirit that engaged in it until the new nature had gained the victory, then the angel that is with every soul that is born on earth would go away from it and for ever, leaving it alone, withoutconscience, free to carry out without scruple whatsoeverReasonshould order.
So Catherine, familiar with the great crisis through which the girl was passing, said nothing, but quietly left the room, as she knew was the wisest thing to be done, leaving the victim to fight with her agony by herself, and little doubting what the result would be.
When a man turns his face definitely in that direction, and sets out on his melancholy road to the dogs, he can get over a good deal of ground in two years.
Two years had passed since we last saw him in his Temple chambers, and in that time Tommy Hudson had travelled a long way down the hill. He had considerably degenerated. He had drifted into hard drinking, and his once-refined features indicated the habit too clearly. His practice at the bar had nearly melted away; solicitors could no longer rely on the drunkard.
Feeling his degradation, stricken by remorse, he would make resolutions of reform which his nature, originally weak and unsteady and ever further sinking, was unable to carry out.
His friends shunned him. He had become one in whose company men were ashamed to be seen. He had recently been black-balled when put up for election at a small legal club in the neighbourhood of the Law Courts; and this last disgrace more than anything else hurried on his descent by driving him to despair and recklessness.
However, he was still far from being irreclaimably lost, and it was only occasionally that his condition was demonstratively disgraceful.
His originally strong tendency for adventure with the fair sex was much exaggerated by his chronic alcoholism, and wasbecoming with him a sort of monomania. A diseased brain made him restless and fearful of solitude, so that the company of some strange woman or other grew to be a constant necessity.
As decent men would not associate with him now—as he was still too proud to make friends of the loafers, unprincipled, broken-down gentlemen, and other rats of society who would have gladly welcomed him among them—he was perforce driven into the at any rate far less degrading companionship of the free-living members of the other sex.
But at the end of these two years an event happened that turned the current of his life for a time. A relative died and left him a few thousand pounds.
This brought Hudson to his senses. He made up his mind to live a more cleanly life. He suddenly abandoned his drinking habits, and really struggled hard to retrace his steps to respectability.
He knew that his practice would not return to him at once; so, in order to occupy his time, he determined to take to literature—he had dabbled in it before, and was not unknown to the editors of the magazines. He resumed a novel that he had commenced and put aside years back, and felt a great delight in finding that he had not to any great extent lost his power for steady work.
He had been living this reformed life for a fortnight, when he bethought him to take a holiday one fine afternoon and visit the academy. One who had seen him only two weeks before would scarcely have recognized him, as he walked with a light step along the streets. He was a man once more. He held his head erect, and there was a happy smile about his mouth, that spoke of high hope and ambition. He felt a lightness of heart, an exultation of spirit, he had not known for years. Once more he had an honest pride in himself, once more the future looked bright with glorious dreams.
He had been strolling through the academy—which was ratherempty at the time—for about half an hour, when he remembered that an artist who had been his friend in former days, and with whom he had taken several very pleasant walking-tours on the continent, had made himself famous this year by exhibiting two very well-executed landscapes.
He referred to the catalogue and soon found where one of these was hung. He had been before it for some minutes, when he became conscious that a lady was standing by him looking at the same picture.
He was rather in her way and was obstructing her view, so he stepped aside, and taking off his hat murmured some slight apology.
She bowed and smiled faintly, but it was a particularly pleasing smile.
He looked at her and was immediately struck by her peculiar beauty. Her rich complexion, long voluptuous eyes and full well-moulded form, were indeed well fitted to attract the attention of man. She appeared to be about twenty-four years old. There was nothing fast in her appearance. She was well, though plainly dressed. He also noticed that she had tiny and well-shaped hands and feet.
He was so fascinated, that without intending it, he was staring very hard at her. At first she was—or pretended to be—unconscious of his earnest gaze; then she looked up and their eyes met, hers calm and wondering, his full of meaning admiration.
She dropped her eyes and blushed prettily, and then commenced to take a great interest in the picture before her.
He stood by her, also pretending to be intent on the painting for about half a minute, when, as she did not move away, he ventured to speak.
"I see our tastes are similar. It is a beautiful picture, is it not?"
She looked at him calmly.
"Indeed, it is; but I don't seem to recognize the artist's name, Is he well known?"
"I don't think he had much reputation till this year; but the two pictures he is exhibiting here now have been much admired. He has now become quite a celebrated man."
"Then he has another picture in the academy!"
"He has, and I believe it is the best of the two. If you will allow me I will find out for you where it is. They say it is quite one of the pictures of the year."
She hesitated a little before she made a reply.
"It is very kind of you—I should very much like to see it. But I must not trouble you."
"Please don't imagine it will be any trouble to me. Besides I am anxious to see the picture myself. I used to know the artist very well."
"Oh! that must be very interesting for you. I have often thought how nice it must be to know the authors and painters of the books and pictures we admire."
"I am afraid you would be very often disappointed in them," he said, laughing. "I see from the catalogue that the picture is in the next room. Would you like to go there now?"
They walked into the room together, and after a few more common-place remarks and interchange of ideas in front of the picture in question, the ice was still further broken between them. The two young people entered into quite a lively talk. He became still more fascinated; for her voice was low and sweet, and there was a frank, trusting, communicativeness in her conversation that was perfectly delicious.
They sat for a considerable time together on the divan in front of the picture, but they paid little attention to that great work of art.
Said she, "You must think me very fast to come here all by myself, and what is worse allow you, an entire stranger to me to enter into conversation with me."
"No! It is all my fault. I forced myself upon you. It was very kind on your part not to snub me for my presumption."
She sighed. "Ah! I am afraid I was wrong; but you see I am alone in London, I have no friends here. It is so very lonely for me. It is so pleasant to talk sometimes with—with—well with people like yourself. I think I have some excuse, don't you?"
"Every excuse!"
"And after all, what great harm is there in it? It is rather unconventional perhaps."
"And therefore the pleasanter. I don't see why we should be always tied down by those silly hard-and-fast rules of society."
"No more do I! though I am not one of those strong-minded women who believe in woman's rights. Besides,"—and she laughed prettily—"what harm are you likely to do me? You don't look like a pickpocket or an ogre. I am quite old enough to look after myself, even if you do prove to be anything but what I take you for—a gentleman."
He bowed and said, "I do not think you need fear me."
"Dear me," she continued, "how curious it is! Here are we two, who had never even seen each other an hour ago, talking as freely as if we had known each other for years."
"That is the advantage of being frank and straightforward. Those stiff, reserved people, who are always suspicious of strangers, miss a lot of pleasure in this world. Now you see we were both dull, moping about here alone, and now how happy we are!—at least I speak for myself."
He persuaded her to have some tea in the refreshment room, when she confided to him a little of her history. The misfortunes of her family had obliged her to seek a livelihood in the metropolis.
"I have been trying to start a small school for little boys,"she said, "but my capital was slender, and nobody knows me in London. I have spent far more than I can properly afford in advertisements, and they seem to produce no effect. I shall have to abandon that project."
The barrister's compassion was much excited by the simple tale. "And what do you purpose doing then?" he said. "But forgive me; I am so interested that I am afraid I am asking questions I have no right to ask."
"Why not?" she replied simply. "I am thinking of becoming a nurse in a hospital. I had some training of the kind a few years ago."
"It is rather a hard and unpleasant life I should imagine."
"Perhaps so—but you know beggars cannot be choosers; but I must not bore you any longer with my foolish history."
"On the contrary I am deeply interested—and you say you have no friends at all in London?"
"None!" she replied with a forlorn sigh that went to his heart.
After a pause he spoke again in earnest tones.
"I wish you would allow me to become a friend. I think it would be very foolish of us to separate to-day without arranging any plans about meeting again. We have already agreed that conventionality ought sometimes to be dispensed with. Here surely is a very good case in point. I should like exceedingly to see you again; I should be very sorry if we did not continue this friendship. Have you any objection?"
"Of course not. I should very much like it," she replied looking at once into his eyes. "The idea is charming to me. Ah! if you knew how terrible it is to have no friend, no one to confide in, you would feel for me I know."
"I find my own life a little lonely too sometimes," he said, "I am a barrister—"
"A barrister!" she interrupted. "Ah! I have long wished to know a barrister. I have always thought they must be such clever men."
"Well, I suppose we are quite up to the other professions. But now I think, as we have settled that we are to be friends, it is not worth our while to delay about it. Let us imagine we have been friends quite a long time—and will you do me the honour of dining with me to-night?"
"Dine with you!" she exclaimed, as if startled by the idea.
"Yes—why not? It will enable us to learn more of each other. We will dine at a restaurant, and if you like we will go to a theatre afterwards."
She only hesitated a moment, then replied, "You are very kind—you don't know what a treat you are proposing to me. I have been so very dull of late—No!" she cried joyfully, "I cannot refuse you. The prospect is too delightful."
They passed an exceedingly pleasant evening together. When the play was over he put her in a cab and they separated. She would not tell him where she lived, but gave him an address at a stationer's shop to which he might write; and also made an appointment to meet him on the following day.
He walked home aflame with a passion which he fondly believed was love. He considered that he had fallen into a very lucky adventure. Knowing well the weakness of his own character, he argued with himself that it would be an excellent thing for him to be fond of a really nice little woman like this. An intrigue of this kind would keep him straight. It had always been one of his maxims that to have a mistress was a grand thing for a man; it settled him, and preserved him from dissipation.
It was perhaps a rather wild thing to hope to find salvation in such a union as the one he contemplated; nevertheless it has happened to many men of his nature to be regenerated by a mistress.
There are certain men—not of the meanest order—whose happiness and success in life, or misery and failure, entirely depend on women. Of an amorous disposition, love is a necessityto these. If such a man take a good woman as his mate, he is indeed happy in her. She makes him a god; she stimulates him to noble endeavour; encourages him in the dark hours; and raises to success a life that would have yielded to temporary failure.
Happy too is the woman who has thus completed the nature of the powerful weak man, happy in that her benign influence has made a being intellectually so far her superior yet morally her inferior, admirable instead of despicable. Happy too is she, in that the man knows it, and his grateful love burns true and holy until death.
But the bad woman can as easily drag down such a nature, as a good woman can ennoble it. A crisis had now come to the life of the barrister. He had already checked himself on his downward career, he was struggling after the lost good. Were this new friend of his to prove a woman of the right sort, he might probably still become a distinguished man in his profession or in literature.
But, alas! the Fates were against him.
For it happened that this young lady whom the barrister had met was no other than our old acquaintance Susan Riley—the youngest member of the Inner Circle of the Secret Society—the one who had known the pains and joys of motherhood.
Cat that she was, she had a cat-like love for prowling about in the evening with no definite purpose, but in search of adventure. She might be often seen in Regent Street in the afternoon. She would on occasion allow strange gentlemen to enter into conversation with her. Ah! how modest and demure she would be at first! By-and-bye the befooled man would become infatuated. Dinners, suppers, bonnets, gloves and jewellery would be showered upon her; but at last when the swain thought it full time that his amours should advance a step further, and leave the cold regions of Platonic love she wouldas likely as not turn and laugh him to scorn, leave him, and start to pastures new in search of fresh game.
She could talk low and sweetly, this cunning beauty, and her blue eyes would so well lie of love as they looked up timidly from under their curling lashes. By the very manner with which she would draw on her glove, she could make a man believe she loved him.
The result of the adventure at the academy was that she and the barrister saw a good deal of each other. Their friendship ripened. She played her cards cunningly, and soon made her conquest complete.
She told him a lamentable tale about a runaway husband—a clergyman, she said. He looked the name up in an old clergy-list, and there indeed it was, so he believed her tale. She filled him with pity for her forlorn state.
A very considerable proportion of Hudson's income found its way, if not directly, indirectly, into her pockets. She wheedled him well, though he was no fool. But what young man can look through the glamour that surrounds a beautiful and clever woman? He deceives himself willingly, and believes she is an angel, though he knows how silly he is to believe so.
Susan understood her man, and she thought it worth her while to take considerable trouble over his conquest. Cautiously she wove her web around him. She did not yield her heart (?) too soon, but kept him for some time in suspense.
How candid she appeared to be! One day she placed her daintily-gloved hand gently on his arm, and looking openly into his eyes, said: "Ah! Mr. Hudson, it is very kind of you to take so much interest in me—to do so much for me; but I will not deceive you; you must not speak to me again of love. I cannot love. I am deeply grateful—I like you very much—but I will never, never love you!"
He poured out a flood of wild protestations of undying, boundlessaffection; he implored, lamented, made oaths, and so forth, as is usual with men under like circumstances.
"No!" she went on with a sigh—"no, Mr. Hudson, I dare not love again. I know how sweet is love—no one better. Sometimes I think I was created only to love and be loved. But after that one terrible disappointment, I dare never love again. Oh, Mr. Hudson!"—looking at him with swimming eyes, and speaking in thrilling tones—"how can I ever trust a man again?—to trust and be deceived—to love and then to lose! Oh, it would kill me! I can never allow my poor heart to love again."
Then of course followed fresh protestations and oaths of constancy from the victim, to which she only replied by a piteous sigh.
This sort of thing went on for a fortnight or so; then she got sick of it. She thought that there had been quite enough of this preliminary play; and that the time had come for her to yield gracefully to his importunity.
One fine Sunday afternoon, they were walking together in Kew gardens.
"Do you not like me a little bit?" asked Hudson, imploringly.
"Of course I like you. You are my dearest—my only friend!"
"But cannot you love me, my darling? Oh! indeed you can trust me—this is no boy's love of mine! I am old enough to know my own mind. I love you as few men ever loved a woman, as I never knew that I myself could love. You are the one thing in the whole world to me. Trust me—this is no passing fancy."
A profound sigh was her sole reply. She was rather proud of her sighs; they were wonderfully expressive.
"Cannot you love me alittle, Edith?" She called herself Edith to her young men as being a more euphonious name than Susan.
Her answer this time was a nervous stirring up of the sand with her parasol, and a downcast look and silence.
"Oh, Edith! I do so hunger for your love," he urged again. "Can you not give me a little for all this love of mine? Oh, my darling! if you can only give me back a hundredth part of my love for you, I shall be satisfied."
She turned her head—as if to conceal her emotion, but really to hide a smile that she could not altogether suppress, having a strong sense of the ridiculous—and said, in accents of piteous pleading:
"Don't! don't, Tom!—don't take advantage of my weakness."
"Then youdolove me?" he cried, passionately.
"It is cruel of you to force me to confess my feelings. Oh, Tom!—I can't help it!—now you know all!—Idolove you!"
She had still a few pretty scruples which she allowed him to talk her out of gradually. It was very wrong, she urged, for her to accept him as a lover—she a married woman!—her husband still alive! But the eloquent barrister managed to persuade her to the contrary.
It was a grotesque burlesque of love at which these two were playing. She, of course, felt no love whatever for the man. Love was a sentiment unknown to her, though she had the voluptuous nature of a Messalina. She also knew that his was not a real unselfish love for her. He himself was more or less conscious of this latter fact. This new intrigue disappointed him in a way; he instinctively felt that there was something wrong about this pretty woman—that her society would probably do him more harm than good.
His affection for her was passionate enough, but it would not bear analysis—and he knew it—being made up as it was of equal parts of lust and vanity.
A man who has gone mad over a girl in this way will squander everything he has on her, not because he loves her, not evenspending it so as to benefit her, but merely in display—in suppers, dress, and folly, whereby the vanity of both is gratified.
A very selfish love after all is this quasi-love of a man, however fierce, however self-devoted it appear; and women of the world such as the Riley know this well. Little wonder, then, that they laugh at their admirers behind their back; and determine to fleece them well before the inevitable weariness comes, and the men go off in search of newer loves.
These two contrived, however, to get on very well together, and their intimacy continued for month after month, involving much expenditure of hard cash on his side, of sighs and lies on hers.
The infatuation of the man increased. He would have thrown away his all, nay, his life, for this woman. He became her very slave; and yet all the while he felt that she was not a good woman; he was ashamed of his ignoble passion.
Disgusted at his own folly, he took to drink again; he broke through his resolution of reform, and, turning his face round, began to retrace his steps down the hill—this time never to come back.
Susan had wormed out of him all his history, and found that he had considerable prospects on the death of some relative, so she did not desert him when his rapidly-increasing drinking propensities made of him a not over pleasant companion at times; but she tried to play the part of reformer and beautiful guardian angel of the man.
In reality, she contrived to sink him further into the abyss, and by this means make him more and more her slave. While preaching to him like a saint about his bad habits, she would put in suggestions and tantalizing thoughts, despairs and regrets that she knew were calculated to make him unhappy and drink the deeper when she was not by him. She made up her mind to be indispensable to him; he should be a miserable drunkard when she was not by; he should not forsake her, at anyrate till his property came in and she had taken her fair share of it.
Of all the circumstances that combined to drag this weak, vacillating creature down, none were so dire as his friendship with this fiend in the shape of an angel.
In the vicinity of one of our great London Hospitals, there is a pleasant Park. Very diversified in its character: laid out most artistically in shady groves, sloping lawns of soft grass, retired rockeries where water drips among giant ferns, and lakes winding in and out between banks covered with fine trees and exotic flowers. It is one of the most charming of the many charming oases in the vast Saharah of brick and mortar. And yet the fashionable world know nothing of it save by name. It is the playground of the people, and perhaps has never been visited by any of the daughters of Mayfair, except on the one occasion, when Royalty went down into that poverty-stricken quarter of the great city, to formally open these beautiful gardens to the humblest of its subjects.
But being within easy reach of the hospital, it was a common thing for the worn-out house-surgeons, the nurses and others connected with that noble charity, to snatch a few moments of fresh air in that pleasant place, in the intervals of their labour among the sick.
It was early in November, but the autumn had been so mild, and so free from the usual blustering South Westers, that the leaves were still on the trees, and the glorious colouring of the foliage was such as to remind Canadian visitors of their own mellow Indian summer.
Two young women were walking leisurely by the path whichbordered the lake. The elder of the two, who seemed to be about twenty-five, was of middle height, well filled out, dumpy she might almost be called, not over much so, however, but to that extent only that many of the other sex prefer in a woman. She was pretty, decidedly so, but not of agoodprettiness; she had the sort of evil beauty that tempted the old saints, the purely carnal attractiveness.
When a man's met her eyes, he was fascinated; but the thoughts that they excited in him were of madness and lust, and not of the pure and chastening delight which the beauty of the true woman inspires.
Those eyes were large, languid, with full pupils, and lids that generally half closed over them—eyes that would not look frankly into yours, though they would voluptuously—eyes that to him who can read the tale the human features tell, betrayed the lascivious, deceitful, cruel temperament—the three qualities so often go together—and let the man that values his manhood avoid such eyes as he would the lord of hell, who, as the hermits of old believed, created them.
If the affection of such a woman be cast upon a man he is lost; for it is not the sweet flower of love that they will enjoy together, but another, a flower indeed, but a flower of hell.
The other woman was taller, slighter, much younger, and of a very different style of beauty; for this other was Mary Grimm, whereas her companion was Susan Riley.
The two would-be baby-killers were now members of an association of lady nurses, and were undergoing their training for ministry of the sick at the neighbouring hospital.
They were conversing: Susan in a flippant volatile fashion, not forgetting to cast sidelong glances of conquest through the corners of her eyes at the men that passed her, as ever eager for admiration; Mary in an earnest manner, not observing the people, and while she talked, throwing, in an absent way, crumbsof bread she had brought with her for the purpose to the tame swans and ducks that swam on the artificial water.
The contrast between the two was immense, and indeed they were at the opposite poles of womanhood.
Mary was speaking:
"And do you really find an absolute pleasure, as you say you do, in being in the possession of a secret like this, Susan? I cannot say that I do. It is necessary of course to work in the dark: but I should like so much better if we could work out our ends openly, before all the world, and not in round-about ways, in holes and corners."
Sister Susan laughed.
"You are not half a woman, Mary; why, you talk just like some silly young man might. Love a secret! of course I do. All women love secrets. Anything that smells of mystery and intrigue exerts a fascination on the feminine imagination. I should not care a bit to be a leader of revolution in the face of all the world—but to be an executioner of the unknown terror, the pitiless secret punishment that works in silence, that strikes in the dark, unseen, unexpected. I must confess that has for me a delightful charm. It's quite irresistible."
Mary replied: "Yes, women may love secrets, but—"
Susan interrupted her with a hard laugh. "Love secrets! I should think so, indeed; why, a woman is so fond of a secret and considers it such a precious thing that she cannot even keep it to herself. She must needs go, unselfish generous creature, and share the treasure with all her friends. Nasty people hint so, anyhow. Now as you are not a bad little thing, though a little fool, I'll tell you a secret. I'm going to leave the hospital soon. I've got a very goodplacethrough Sister Eliza."
"What are you going to do?" asked Mary, deeply interested, for she knew what "a place" signified, without the emphasis which Susan had laid on the expression.
"Nothing less than be a sort of nursery governess in Lord Doughton's house," was the reply.
"Lord Doughton!" exclaimed Mary. "Why, Sister Eliza says that he is the largest landed proprietor in England since his marriage with that heiress whose estates adjoined his."
"Sister Eliza is quite right," said Susan. "She makes it her business to keep a registry of all that concerns the great landed proprietors. Lord Doughton has been married eleven years; he has three children; the eldest is a boy of ten, a cripple. Think of that, no less than three to get rid of. Aren't you jealous?"
"But you don't mean that a child as old as that has to be—to be—"
"But of course I do," interrupted Susan sharply, then continued with her usual heartless flippant tones. "I'll tell you what it is, my girl, the sooner you get the rest of this sentimentality out of you, the better. It's sickening."
"Surely there is a great distinction between removing babies just born, who have not really begun to live, and killing big boys and men."
Susan laughed.
"Bless me, here's a fine moral distinction! Whatisthe difference pray, Miss Casuist? But turn off here, across the grass. If we are going to talk of these things we had better go where there is no chance of eaves-dropping. Our conversation would rather surprise that shabby-looking old person there if he overheard it, wouldn't it? Let's go and ask him what is the latest age at which it is justifiable to put away a human being for the public good."
"For God's sake, Susan, let us talk seriously!" Mary said.
"Forwhosesake? don't know him; but for your sake I'll be sober for a little time as you hate joviality; you'll be jovial enough though when you are as old as I am, and have gone through as much. It's by joviality people who have sufferedplenty make up for it when it's all over. You'll find that out. People who have lived untroubled lives are seldom jovial."
They walked on in silence a short distance, then Mary after looking around her said:
"There is no one about here; there is no danger of anyone overhearing us now."
"Right you are, Mary; so now I'll answer your question.Didyou ask me a question by-the-bye?"
"I don't think so; but we were talking about this boy of Lord Doughton's."
"Ah, yes! to be sure, the sprig of nobility you thought was too old to die. I've heard of people being too young to die; but you seem to think that one gets a sort of prescriptive right of living, that life's like land out of which one shouldn't be turned if there have been so many years undisputed possession. Droll theory! But I see you are frowning, so I'll try to be serious. Now, whatisthe difference between killing a baby or a ten-year-older? The latter doesn't feel more pain in the process of being put out of the way; why should his life be considered to be of more value? Why, bless the girl! We must kill all theheirs, whatever age they may be. Of course we must kill them as babies if possible, because it is easier to get at them."
Mary had been scanning with great curiosity the woman's face as she glibly chattered on in her flippant way.
"Susan," she asked, "haveyou ever killed a child?"
"Yes, one," was the prompt reply, delivered in a cool matter-of-fact fashion.
"Lately."
"No, long ago; not for the cause, before I even joined the Sisterhood, or dreamed of all the theories and plots my head is now chokefull of. It was my own baby."
The two women looked at each other, the one with a hard stare of brazen effrontery, the other with an expression of terror and disgust.
"Ay!" went on the elder with a voice which, breaking through its usual false ring, was full of malice and bitterness. "Ay! you cream-faced beauty, you are shocked are you? Of course you are right. One should not kill except for the good of the Society, other private killing is objectionable. I know all that. But wait until you have gone through what I have, and see what you will be then...." Changing back to her old light tone she continued, "Ah, Mary! it was the same old story with me as with the rest. A warm temperament"—and she laughed as she made this cool confession—"a warm temperament, a man, and a baby, that's all—and a little tragedy mixed up with it that won't be worth your while to hear about now."
Mary had never liked this woman, she now began to conceive an intense dislike for her. Susan would never have converted her to the cause, though she was the very person to win over girls naturally flighty and wicked. But Mary concealed her dislike as much as possible, for she was interested in drawing out this strange being, so wicked, so like a female Mephistopheles, so different in every way to her own ideal, her mistress, Catherine King.
"Did you have such a thing as a conscience when you were a little girl, Sister Susan?" she inquired.
"I don't know—not much of a one anyhow. I never had the fight you had; and yet your conscience still raises his head now and then. You are full of pities, and scruples, and trashy sentiment. I'll tell you what it is. Mary; I know what you want; I know what will soon make you happier, what will altogether knock on the head that nasty, teasing conscience of yours. Would you like to know what it is?"
"I wish youwouldtell me the cure; but time is the only one. It is not conscience though, it is cowardice."
"Indeed! I should not have taken you for a coward," Susan observed.
"But I am. It can be nothing else than cowardice. Iknow it is my duty—I know it is for the good of the world that I should do certain things. Of course I will do those things when I am ordered to do so. But, oh! how I shall shirk that horrible duty! How I shall suffer! I sometimes think I shall go mad when the time comes."
"Nonsense. I've heard young medical students talk like that. Yet see how soon they get hardened into chopping and probing away into our quivering anatomies. No! You go and try my patent cure for conscience—never known to fail, cures pain at the heart, prevents softening—testimonials from Mrs. Jezebel, several empresses of Rome, and many of the nobility and gentry. Try it, Mary!"
"Well, what is it?" asked the girl, laughing in spite of her melancholy frame of mind.
"A regular bad man," replied the other fiercely—"that's my prescription, my dear. You've got a pretty face enough, so the drug can be easily 'presented,' as the doctors say. It's not a difficult medicine to procure. It is not even unpleasant to the taste at first—on the contrary; but it rather upsets you when it's working its effect and purging the morbid secretion conscience out of you. Go and get one, one of your haw-haw club dandies; get him to fall in love with you, as they will for a time. It's easy to make him do that—work on his vanity, that's all. Flatter him—you'll catch any man like that. Talk about woman's vanity—it's nothing to a man's. Then you must fall in love with him—you may find that difficult, but it is necessary, else the medicine won't work. Now after a period more or less long—after babies, coolness, insult, desertion—after your hero proves but a mean, heartless cad after all—after all this, the devil of a bit of conscience you'll find left in you, I'll guarantee."
Mary looked at Susan, wondering at this strange nature, feeling a great antipathy, yet not unmixed with pity, for the vain, wicked, hardened creature by her side.
At last she said,
"I often wonder what you were like when you were a child, Susan."
Susan seemed buried in thought, and did not reply for a few minutes. "You want to know how my antecedents developed the charming being, Susan Riley? I don't suppose my nature was what some people would call a good one to begin with; but, child—for you are a child to me—you have suffered nothing to what I have. Your life at Brixton was an unhappy one, there ends your suffering; my life as a child, too, was no merry one. But it was what happened afterwards. It wasa manthat completed my education and finished my conscience. Ah, what a bringing up was mine! I, full of animal life, high-spirited, was kept down by my parents as few children have been. They, both father and mother, were religious monomaniacs, cruel, selfish, hard Puritans of the severest school. And what fools they were too! Just think of it! My father thought that any person who did not exactly believe in his own narrow views, must be altogether a child of sin—capable of any possible crime. So my brother, who would not play the hypocrite enough, was so mistrusted by my father, that when my cousin, a pretty girl, came to our house to tea, as she often did, he was not permitted to escort her home afterwards. No! a man-servant, a sneaking hypocrite, was sent with her instead—that man seduced my sister, and, I believe, my cousin also. My brother was driven to the dogs, of course, by the judicious treatment of his parents. I will tell you what happened to him some day. Ha! there's an education to drive religion out of you. How I hated the very name of it! How I hated my father and mother, and all the sneaking, sickly crew that surrounded them! Anyhow, my dear parents died broken-hearted at their children's behaviour; that was one consolation for us anyhow."
Neither spoke for some time, then Mary asked, "Do youthink, Susan, that after I have once removed a child I shall be different, will this feeling of horror go away then? Oh! it is awful, Susan. I believe even you would pity me if you knew. My life is now like one long night-mare. In the day-time I wish that it was night-time again, that I might be asleep; and in the night it is no better and I wish it was day again; and I always wish that I was dead. I would kill myself were it not for my dear mistress. Are many of the sisters like this? Shall I go mad do you think, Susan?"
Susan replied, "It is the first step that costs, as we used to translate some sentence in the French exercise book when I was at school. I can't give you the original, I've forgotten my French, and piano, and other accomplishments now; but it means that when you have killed your first baby you will feel better: that is the experience of all Nihilists. All have the horrors, more or less, at first. They think that as soon as they have done the deed some frightful bogie, some maddening remorse worse than anything imaginable before, will jump up and seize them. It is the dread of this bogie that does all the mischief. Now, as soon as they have done the deed, they are so agreeably surprised to find that this dreaded bogie doesnotcome, that a delightful reaction sets in. You should see how mad some of them get with joy. As soon as you have killed your first baby, or boy, or man, your horrors will go. You will experience immediate relief. It's like having a tooth out."
"I see what you mean. It sounds natural enough, too," said Mary, musingly.
"Of course; and at last you'll become a jovial body like me, and you'll come to like your duties and take a relish in blood for its own sake."
Mary shuddered perceptibly, and said, "I shall never come to that I hope—that is, I fear."