hout
seeing them together, walking down the street, sitting in the garden.
My bedroom window overlooked their summer-house. I used to see him come
in and kiss her."

Teresa shuddered.

"I should have gone mad! Poor old Mary! But why did you stand it? I
should have gone away, and done something."

"What?" Mary asked, and Teresa was silent. Mary had a way of asking
questions which were impossible to answer. What _could_ Mary do? She
was one of the vast army of middle-class daughters brought up to do
nothing, and thereby as hopelessly imprisoned as any slave of old. She
possessed no natural gifts nor accomplishments, she lacked the training
which would have ensured excellence in any one department of domestic
work, she was devoid of a personality which would make her mere
companionship of marketable value. What could Mary do, and who would
care to engage Mary to do it? Teresa was silent, finding no reply. She
stood hesitating by the bedside, sympathetic but impatient. She was
sorry; of course she was sorry, but to-night she wanted to be glad. It
would have been better to have gone straight to her room.

"I couldn't go away," Mary continued slowly, "but they went--after two
years! I fought so hard to deaden myself that I might not feel, that I
seem to have been half dead ever since. It's eight years since they
left. I don't love him now. I don't think of him for months at a time;
but that was my love affair, Teresa. There was never anyone else.
There never will be now, and life goes on just the same year after year.
It's wicked, I suppose, but I wonder sometimes why women like me were
ever born."

"Mary, you are very useful. You work so hard--you are always working."

"Little things!" said Mary, sighing. "Little things! Things with my
hands. But a woman is not _all_ hands." She hitched the blankets once
more, and lay back on the pillow. "You'd better go to bed. It's
getting late."

"Good night, Mary; good old Mary! You shall come and stay with me in my
house, and I'll give you a real good time."

Teresa turned away, eager to make her escape. She did not kiss her
sister, for kisses were not frequent in the Mallison family, and the
sudden unlocking of Mary's sealed lips left an effect of strangeness, as
if some stranger had taken her place. It was disturbing and
disagreeable to realise that Mary could _feel_! She opened the door
softly and was stepping over the threshold when Mary's voi