cherished that singular
desire of many strong-willed women, to be ruled and mastered by the man
she loved, and she had entirely failed to understand her husband's
attitude towards her. She resented it as a sign of indifference. She was
like the Chinese wives, who complain bitterly of a husband's neglect
when he omits to beat them. She taunted the Professor for failing to
assert his "rights."

"Morally, I have no rights, except such as you choose to give me of your
own free will," he replied. "I am not your gaoler."

"And even that did not penetrate to her better nature till it was too
late," Valeria continued. "But after the mischief was done, that phrase
seems to have stung her to torment. Her training had blinded her, as one
is blinded in coming out of darkness into a bright light. She was used
to narrower hearts and smaller brains. Her last letter--a terrible
record of the miseries of remorse--shews that she recognized at last
what sort of a man he was whose heart she had broken. But even in her
repentance, she was unable to conquer her egotism. She could not face
the horrors of self-accusation; she preferred to kill herself."

"What a shocking story!" cried Hadria.

"And all the more so because the Professor clings to her memory so
faithfully. He blames himself for everything. He ought, he says, to have
realized better the influence of her training; he ought to have made her
understand that he could not assert what she called his 'rights' without
insulting her and himself."

"Whenever one hears anything new about the Professor, it is always
something that makes one admire and love him more than ever!" cried
Hadria.

Her first meeting with him was in the old Yew Avenue in the Priory
garden. He was on his way to call at the Red House. She stood on a patch
of grass by a rustic seat commanding the vista of yews, and above them,
a wilderness of lilacs and laburnums, in full flower. It looked to her
like a pathway that led to some exquisite fairy palace of one's
childhood.

Almost with the first word that the Professor uttered, Hadria felt a
sense of relief and hope. The very air seemed to grow lighter, the scent
of the swaying flowers sweeter. She always afterwards associated this
moment of meeting with the image of that avenue of mourning yews,
crowned with the sunlit magnificence of an upper world of blossom.

What had she been thinking of to run so close to despair during these
years? A word, a smile, and t