st
her child. And in these suspended hours of the voyage, when life floats
between sky and sea, amid the infinity of weaves, all that she had been
doing since the divorce, her public "causes" and triumphs, the
adulations with which she had been surrounded, began to seem to her
barren and futile. No, she was not happy; what she had done had not
answered; and she knew it.

* * * * *

One night, a night of calm air and silvery sea, she hung over the ship's
side, dreaming rather miserably. The ship, aglow with lights, alive with
movement, with talk, laughter and music, glided on between the stars and
the unfathomable depths of the mid-Atlantic. Nothing, to north and
south, between her and the Poles; nothing but a few feet of iron and
timber between her and the hungry gulfs in which the highest Alp would
sink from sight. The floating palace, hung by Knowledge above Death,
just out of Death's reach, suggested to her a number of melancholy
thoughts and images. A touch of more than Arctic cold stole upon her,
even through this loveliness of a summer night; she felt desperately
unhappy and alone.

From the saloon came a sound of singing:

_"An die Lippen wollt' ich pressen
Deine kleine weisse Hand,
Und mit Thraenen sie benetzen
Deine kleine weisse Hand."_

The tears came to her eyes. She remembered that she, too, had once felt
the surrender and the tenderness of love.

Then she brushed the tears away, angry with herself and determined to
brood no more. But she looked round her in vain for a companion who
might distract her. She had made no friends on board, and though she had
brought with her a secretary and a maid, she kept them both at arm's
length, and they never offered their society without an invitation.

What was she going to do? And why was she making this journey?

Because the injustice and absurdity of English law had distorted and
besmirched her own perfectly legitimate action. They had given a handle
to such harsh critics as Alfred Boyson. But she meant somehow to put
herself right; and not only herself, but the great cause of woman's
freedom and independence. No woman, in the better future that is coming,
shall be forced either by law or opinion to continue the relations of
marriage with a man she has come to despise. Marriage is merely
proclaimed love; and if love fails, marriage has no further meaning or
_raison d'etre_; it comes, or should come, automa