You are probably aware of the hideous fate that was only too probably the lot, during those last dark days, of every girl of the insecure classes who loved and gave way to the impulse of self-abandonment without marriage, and so you will understand the peculiar situation of Nettie with young Verrall.  One or other had to suffer.  And as they were both in a state of great emotional exaltation and capable of strange generosities toward each other, it was an open question and naturally a source of great anxiety to a mother in Mrs. Verrall’s position, whether the sufferer might not be her son—­whether as the outcome of that glowing irresponsible commerce Nettie might not return prospective mistress of Checkshill Towers.  The chances were greatly against that conclusion, but such things did occur.

These laws and customs sound, I know, like a record of some nasty-minded lunatic’s inventions.  They were invincible facts in that vanished world into which, by some accident, I had been born, and it was the dream of any better state of things that was scouted as lunacy.  Just think of it!  This girl I loved with all my soul, for whom I was ready to sacrifice my life, was not good enough to marry young Verrall.  And I had only to look at his even, handsome, characterless face to perceive a creature weaker and no better than myself.  She was to be his pleasure until he chose to cast her aside, and the poison of our social system had so saturated her nature—­his evening dress, his freedom and his money had seemed so fine to her and I so clothed in squalor—­that to that prospect she had consented.  And to resent the social conventions that created their situation, was called “class envy,” and gently born preachers reproached us for the mildest resentment against an injustice no living man would now either endure or consent to profit by.

What was the sense of saying “peace” when there was no peace?  If there was one hope in the disorders of that old world it lay in revolt and conflict to the death.

But if you can really grasp the shameful grotesqueness of the old life, you will begin to appreciate the interpretation of old Mrs. Verrall’s appearance that leapt up at once in my mind.

She had come to compromise the disaster!

And the Stuarts would compromise!  I saw that only too well.

An enormous disgust at the prospect of the imminent encounter between Stuart and his mistress made me behave in a violent and irrational way.  I wanted to escape seeing that, seeing even Stuart’s first gesture in that, at any cost.

“I’m off,” said I, and turned my back on him without any further farewell.

My line of retreat lay by the old lady, and so I advanced toward her.

I saw her expression change, her mouth fell a little way open, her forehead wrinkled, and her eyes grew round.  She found me a queer customer even at the first sight, and there was something in the manner of my advance that took away her breath.