trade and labour questions, division of
wealth, and the rest of it. He believed in nothing that people who go
to church are credited with believing in, Mrs. Thorpe; his scheme for
the readjustment of things was Force; his pet doctrine, the ultimate
healthy healing that follows the surgery of Revolution. But to me he
was the gentlest creature imaginable; and I was very fond of him, in
spite of his--as I then thought--strange ideas. Strange ideas! Ha!
Many of 'em luckily don't sound quite so irrational today!

GERTRUDE. [Under her breath.] Oh!

AGNES. My home was a wretched one. If dad was violent out of the house,
mother was violent enough in it; with her it was rage, sulk, storm,
from morning till night; till one day father turned a deaf ear to
mother and died in his bed. That was my first intimate experience of
the horrible curse that falls upon so many.

GERTRUDE. Curse?

AGNES. The curse of unhappy marriage. Though really I'd looked on
little else all my life. Most of our married friends were cursed in a
like way; and I remember taking an oath, when I was a mere child, that
nothing should ever push me over into the choked-up, seething pit.
Fool! When I was nineteen I was gazing like a pet sheep into a man's
eyes; and one morning I was married, at St. Andrew's Church in Holborn,
to Mr. Ebbsmith, a barrister.

GERTRUDE. In church?

AGNES. Yes, in church--in church. In spite of father's unbelief and
mother's indifference, at the time I married I was as simple--ay, in
my heart, as devout--as any girl in a parsonage. The other thing
hadn't soaked into me. Whenever I could escape from our stifling rooms
at home, and slam the front door behind me, the air blew away
uncertainty and scepticism; I seemed only to have to take a long, deep
breath to be full of hope and faith. And it was like this till that man
married me.

GERTRUDE. Of course, I guess your marriage was an unfortunate one.

AGNES. It lasted eight years. For about twelve months he treated me
like a woman in a harem, for the rest of the time like a beast of
burden. Oh! When I think of it! [Wiping her brow with her
handkerchief.] Phew!

GERTRUDE. It changed you?

AGNES. Oh, yes, it changed me.

GERTRUDE. You spoke of yourself just now as a widow. He's dead?

AGNES. He died on our wedding day--the eighth anniversary.

GERTRUDE. You were free then--free to begin again.

AGNES. Eh? [Looking at GERTRUDE.] Yes; but you don't begin to believe
all over