You are never to know how deep the iron has entered your soul until Fate begins to draw it out.

When Traill had left her, Sally's mind had been numbed with misery.

The despair of such loneliness as hers is often a narcotic, that drugs all power of thought. In the beating of her pulses, when she had first heard Devenish's footsteps mounting the stairs, she was forced to the realization that hope was not yet dead in the heart of her. That undoubtedly was why, despite all Janet's efforts, she had refused to leave her rooms. The hope that Traill would one day return, that one evening she would hear his steps on the stairs, his knock on the door, had needed only such a coincidence as the unexpected visit of Devenish to stir it into vivid animation. Just so had the Rev. Samuel Bishop hoped, in the fulfilment of his duties as chaplain, that one day the rectorship of Cailsham would return to his possession; just so had he been imbued with faith, the same as hers, when he had shuddered at his narrow avoidance of sacrilege in the vestry of the little church at Steynton. To him, at that moment, it would have been as impossible to pour back the consecrated into the unconsecrated wine, as it had been for Sally to lose a.s.surance that Traill would one day return to her.

But now it was different. The iron, in the sure grasp of the fingers of Fate, was being torn out of her. She could feel it wrenching its way from the very depths. Traill would never come back. It was not so much because she had heard he was in love, that she realized it; that--even then--her faith, in its ashes, repudiated. But when Devenish had said--alluding to the faintest chance of his return--"I shouldn't be here, I a.s.sure you, if there were," she had been made conscious of Traill's tacit permission--unspoken no doubt--to Devenish which had prompted his visit to her rooms.

But last and most poignant of all in the bitterness of this lesson that she had learnt, was her understanding of the place she held in the eyes of such men as Devenish. With those who knew of her life, no friendship was possible. One relationship, one only could exist--a relationship, at the thought of which her whole nature shuddered in violent disgust.

Janet was right. Janet had seen things from their proper point of view. As a trade she should have looked at it. As the leaving of one master to labour in the service of another she should have weighed its issue. Yet, even now, the cruelty of that outlook revolted her.

Had she viewed it thus, those three years of absolute happiness could never have been and she could not even forego the memory of them.

But the knowledge that had come to her, brought decision with it.

She could stay no longer where she was. The thought of meeting just those few people whom she knew, who knew her, in the streets, drove the blood burning to her forehead. She must go away--away from London--away from every chance incident that might fling back in her face the tragedy of her existence. Away from all its a.s.sociations she would be able to hide it; not from herself, not from the biting criticism of her own thoughts. But from others; she could hide it from them.

That night she wrote to Janet asking her to come and see her; and the next day they sat opposite to each other at a table in a quiet restaurant up West.

"I'm going to take your advice," Sally began.

"You're going away?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"At once; in a day or two, as soon as I hear from mother. I wrote to her this morning."

"What did you say?"

"I said that I'd saved up some money and, as I hadn't been very well, I wanted to come down and stay with her for a change. I suggested that I might be of some use in the school."

"Yes, that's all right. But for goodness' sake don't let her see that you've got a lot of money. The wives of clergymen, as far as I've ever seen, are weaned on the milk of suspicion. They'll never believe anybody's properly married but themselves; I suppose that's because they're in the trade. I know Mr. Cheeseman thinks n.o.body's furniture genuine, except his own. That's always a little business failing.

But you ought to be careful."

"But I haven't any too much money," said Sally quietly.

Janet gazed up at her in unsympathetic surprise. "That's rather unlike you," she said abruptly. "I think he was very generous. A hundred and fifty a year, free of rent for three years, is more, I imagine, than most men would drag out of their pockets. You could make what living you liked beside that, if you chose to. I know I should jolly-well think myself a Croesus with that capital."

Her tone of voice was hard with criticism.

"But do you think I take all he's offered me?" asked Sally.

"Do you mean to say you don't?"

"No, I take the very least I can. A pound a week is all I want for my food; what else should I want? I wouldn't touch another penny of it but that till the three years are over. I have all the clothes I could possibly want. You thought I was mean, didn't you, Janet?"

Janet looked up at the ceiling, then impulsively held out her hand.

"G.o.d help me!" she exclaimed, "if I find my own s.e.x an enigma; but what on earth made you decide?"

"Mr. Devenish."

"Who?"

"Mr. Devenish, the man I told you I was dining with that night, six weeks ago."

"Why him, in the name of Heaven?"

"He came to see me last night."

"Well?"

"He took me out to dinner."

"Very good thing too. You want a little of that sort of entertaining.

Did he advise you to go?"

"No--"

"Then what?"

She could see the colour mounting and falling in Sally's cheeks and her suspicions sped to a conclusion.

"He made love to me," said Sally. Her hand went to her eyes. She covered them.

"Oh, I see. You want to get away from him? You don't like him? Think he's going to be a nuisance?"

"No, it's not that." She still hid her face. "I don't think he'd ever come and see me again, now."

"Then what?"

"It was what he said."

"What did he say?"

"He wanted-- Oh!"

Janet leant forward on the table. "To take Traill's place--eh?"

"Yes."

Janet leant back in her chair and looked scrutinizingly at Sally's head, bent into her hands, and from what she knew by this time of Sally's nature, there came the understanding of what such a proposal must have meant.

"And what else did you expect?" she asked gently. "Most men are the same. News that there is a woman to be found situated such as you are spreads through the ranks of them like--like--like a prairie fire.

It goes whispering from one lip to another. You can never tell where it starts. You can never tell where it ends. As soon as a man knows that money can buy a woman he wants, he'll sc.r.a.pe the bottom of the Bank of England to get it. I told you before, it's a business! Why in the name of Heaven can't you give up all your romanticism? If you don't want to go on with it, to be absolutely brutal, if you don't want to make it pay, why can't you take all the money that Traill's given you and go away from here altogether? Well--you are going--thank the Lord for that much sense! But go, and take all you can get with you. Save it up if you won't spend it; and that's better still. But, for G.o.d's sake, take it, it's yours! Surely you've earned it. I should think you had."

Sally dropped her hands and looked up. "I don't know why you and I have ever got on together, Janet," she said brokenly. "I could never conceive two people more absolutely opposite. I sometimes hate the things you say, but I nearly always love you for saying them. I loathe the things you've said now. If I thought like that, I can't see what there would be to stop me from sinking as low--as low as a woman can.

Do you really mean to say that you'd do like that if you cared for a man, as I do for Jack? Would you grasp every penny he'd left you?"

"I don't know. I should either do that, or not take a farthing of it. Make my own living, earn my own way, be independent at any cost."