of heart and brain.
The news of Grace Rudd had flashed upon her as revelation of a clear possibility
where hitherto she had seen only mocking phantoms of futile desire. Grace was an
actress; no matter by what course, to this she had attained. This man,
Scawthorne, spoke of the theatrical life as one to whom all its details were
familiar; acquaintance with him of a sudden bridged over the chasm which had
seemed impassable. Would he come again to see her? Had her involuntary reserve
put an end to any interest he might have felt in her? Of him personally she
thought not at all; she could not have recalled his features; he was a mere
abstraction, the representative of a wild hope which his conversation had
inspired.
    From that day the character of her suffering was altered; it became less
womanly, it defied weakness and grew to a fever of fierce, unscrupulous
rebellion. Whenever she thought of Sidney Kirkwood, the injury he was inflicting
upon her pride rankled into bitter resentment, unsoftened by the despairing
thought of self-subdual which had at times visited her sick weariness. She bore
her degradations with the sullen indifference of one who is supported by the
hope of a future revenge. The disease inherent in her being, that deadly outcome
of social tyranny which perverts the generous elements of youth into mere seeds
of destruction, developed day by day, blighting her heart, corrupting her moral
sense, even setting marks of evil upon the beauty of her countenance. A
passionate desire of self-assertion familiarised her with projects, with ideas,
which formerly she had glanced at only to dismiss as ignoble. In proportion as
her bodily health failed, the worst possibilities of her character came into
prominence. Like a creature that is beset by unrelenting forces, she summoned
and surveyed all the crafty faculties lurking in the dark places of her nature;
theoretically she had now accepted every debasing compact by which a woman can
spite herself on the world's injustice. Self-assertion; to be no longer an
unregarded atom in the mass of those who are born only to labour for others; to
find play for the strength and the passion which, by no choice of her own,
distinguished her from the tame slave. Sometimes in the silence of night she
suffered from a dreadful need of crying aloud, of uttering her anguish in a
scream like that of insanity. She stifled it only by crushing her face into the
pillow until the hysterical fit had passed, and she lay like one dead.
    A fortnight after his first visit Mr. Scawthorne again presented himself,
polite, smiling, perhaps