rld.

"At any rate, supported at first by the old Earl, he began a series of
persecutions designed to make me renounce my suffragist principles, or
at least to make me cease playing a conspicuous public part in the
militant propaganda. As my husband was dead and there were no
children, I could not see that I was accountable to the Claiborne
family for my actions. But the Claibornes took a different view of it.
In their philosophy, once a Claiborne, always a Claiborne. I was
bringing disgrace and humiliation upon the family, in their opinion.
Knowing the old Earl as I do, I am aware that his suffering was genuine
and intense. But what was I to do? One cannot desert one's principles
merely because they cause suffering; otherwise there could be no such
thing as revolution.

"Reginald Maltravers had another reason for his persecution. After the
death of Sir Archibald he himself sought my hand in marriage. I shall
always remember the form of his proposal; it concluded with these
words: 'Had Archibald lived you would have been a countess. You may
still be a countess--but you must drop this suffragist show, you know.
It is all bally rot, Agatha, all bally rot.' I would not have married
him without the condition, for I despised the man himself; but the
condition made me furious and I drove him from my sight with words that
turned him white and made him my enemy forever. 'You will not be my
countess, then,' he said. 'Very well--but I can promise you that you
will cease to be a suffragist.' I can still see the evil flash of his
eye behind his monocle as he uttered these words and turned away."

Lady Agatha shuddered at the recollection, and took a cup of tea.

"It was then," she resumed, "that the real persecution began. I was
peculiarly helpless, as I have no near relations who might have come to
my defense. Representing himself always as the agent of his father,
but far exceeding the Earl in the malevolence of his inventions,
Reginald Maltravers sought by every means he could command to drive me
from public life in England.

"Three times he succeeded in having me flung into Holloway Jail. I need
not tell you of the terrors of that institution, nor of the degrading
horrors of forcible feeding. They are known to a shocked and
sympathetic world. But Reginald Maltravers contrived, in my case, to
add to the usual brutalities a peculiar and personal touch. By
bribery, as I believe, he succeeded in getting himself in