From Herne Hill to St. Peter Port was a change which made of Monica a new creature. The weather could not have been more propitious; day after day of still air and magnificent sky, with temperature which made a brisk walk at any hour thoroughly enjoyable, yet allowed one to sit at ease in the midday sunshine. Their lodgings were in the best part of the town, high up, looking forth over blue sea to the cliffs of Sark. Widdowson congratulated himself on having taken this step; it was like a revival of his honeymoon; never since their settling down at home had Monica been so grateful, so affectionate. Why, his wife was what he had thought her from the first, perfect in every wifely attribute. How lovely she looked as she sat down to the breakfast-table, after breathing sea air at the open windows, in her charming dress, her black hair arranged in some new fashion just to please him! Or when she walked with him about the quays, obviously admired by men who passed them. Or when she seated herself in the open carriage for a drive which would warm her cheeks and make her lips redder and sweeter.

‘Edmund,’ she said to him one evening, as they talked by the fireside, ‘don’t you think you take life rather too gravely?’

He laughed.

‘Gravely? Don’t I seem to enjoy myself?’

‘Oh yes; just now. But — still in a rather serious way. One would think you always had cares on your mind, and were struggling to get rid of them.’

‘I haven’t a care in the world. I am the most blessed of mortals.’

‘So you ought to think yourself. But when we get back again, how will it be? You won’t be angry with me? I really don’t think I can live again as we were doing.’

‘Not live as —’

His brow darkened; he looked at her in astonishment.

‘We ought to have more enjoyment,’ she pursued courageously. ‘Think of the numbers of people who live a dull, monotonous life just because they can’t help it. How they would envy us, with so much money to spend, free to do just what we like! Doesn’t it seem a pity to sit there day after day alone —’

‘Don’t, my darling!’ he implored. ‘Don’t! That makes me think you don’t really love me.

‘Nonsense! I want you to see what I mean. I am not one of the silly people who care for nothing but amusement, but I do think we might enjoy our lives more when we are in London. We shan’t live for ever, you know. Is it right to spend day after day sitting there in the house —’

‘But come, come; we have our occupations. Surely it ought to be a pleasure to you to see that the house is kept in order. There are duties —’

‘Yes, I know. But these duties I could perform in an hour or two.’

‘Not thoroughly.’

‘Quite thoroughly enough.’

‘In my Opinion, Monica, a woman ought never to be so happy as when she is looking after her home.’

It was the old pedantic tone. His figure, in sympathy with it, abandoned an easy attitude and became awkward. But Monica would not allow herself to be alarmed. During the past week she had conducted herself so as to smooth the way for this very discussion. Unsuspecting husband!

‘I wish to do my duty,’ she said in a firm tone, ‘but I don’t think it’s right to make dull work for oneself, when one might be living. I don’t think it is living to go on week after week like that. If we were poor, and I had a lot of children to look after as well as all the housework to do, I believe I shouldn’t grumble — at least, I hope I shouldn’t. I should know that I ought to do what there was no one else to do, and make the best of it. But ——’

‘Make the best of it!’ he interrupted indignantly. ‘What an expression to use! It would not only be your duty, dear, but your privilege!’

‘Wait a moment, Edmund. If you were a shopman earning fifteen shillings a week, and working from early morning to late at night, should you think it not Only your duty but your privilege?’

He made a wrathful gesture.

‘What comparison is there? I should be earning a hard livelihood by slaving for other people. But a married woman who works in her own home, for her husband’s children —’

‘Work is work, and when a woman is overburdened with it she must find it difficult not to weary of home and husband and children all together. But of course I don’t mean to say that my work is too hard. All I mean is, that I don’t see why any one should make work, and why life shouldn’t be as full of enjoyment as possible.’

‘Monica, you have got these ideas from those people at Chelsea. That is exactly why I don’t care for you to see much of them. I utterly disapprove of —’

‘But you are mistaken. Miss Barfoot and Miss Nunn are all for work. They take life as seriously as you do.’

‘Work? What kind of work? They want to make women unwomanly, to make them unfit for the only duties women ought to perform. You know very well my opinions about that kind of thing.’

He was trembling with the endeavour to control himself, to speak indulgently.

‘I don’t think, Edmund, there’s much real difference between men and women. That is, there wouldn’t be, if women had fair treatment.’

‘Not much difference? Oh, come; you are talking nonsense. There’s as much difference between their minds as between their bodies. They are made for entirely different duties.’

Monica sighed.

‘Oh, that word Duty!’

Pained unutterably, Widdowson bent forward and took her hand. He spoke in a tone of the gravest but softest rebuke. She was giving entertainment to thoughts that would lead her who knew whither, that would undermine her happiness, would end by making both of them miserable. He besought her to put all such monstrous speculations out of her mind.

‘Dear, good little wife! Do be guided by your husband. He is older than you, darling, and has seen so much more of the world.’

‘I haven’t said anything dreadful, dear. My thoughts don’t come from other people; they rise naturally in my own head.’

‘Now, what do you really want? You say you can’t live as we were doing. What change would you make?’

‘I should like to make more friends, and to see them often. I want to hear people talk, and know what is going on round about me. And to read a different kind of books; books that would really amuse me, and give me something I could think about with pleasure. Life will be a burden to me before long if I don’t have more freedom.’

‘Freedom?’

‘Yes, I don’t think there’s any harm in saying that.’

‘Freedom?’ He glared at her. ‘I shall begin to think that you wish you had never married me.’

‘I should only wish that if I were made to feel that you shut me up in a house and couldn’t trust me to go where I chose. Suppose the thought took you that you would go and walk about the City some afternoon, and you wished to go alone, just to be more at ease, should I have a right to forbid you, or grumble at you? And yet you are very dissatisfied if I wish to go anywhere alone.’

‘But here’s the old confusion. I am a man; you are a woman.’

‘I can’t see that that makes any difference. A woman ought to go about just as freely as a man. I don’t think it’s just. When I have done my work at home I think I ought to be every bit as free as you are — every bit as free. And I’m sure, Edmund, that love needs freedom if it is to remain love in truth.’

He looked at her keenly.

‘That’s a dreadful thing for you to say. So, if I disapprove of your becoming the kind of woman that acknowledges no law, you will cease to love me?’

‘What law do you mean?’

‘Why, the natural law that points out a woman’s place, and’— he added, with shaken voice —‘commands her to follow her husband’s guidance.’

‘Now you are angry. We mustn’t talk about it any more just now.’

She rose and poured out a glass of water. Her hand trembled as she drank. Widdowson fell into gloomy abstraction. Later, as they lay side by side, he wished to renew the theme, but Monica would not talk; she declared herself too sleepy, turned her back to him, and soon slept indeed.

That night the weather became stormy; a roaring wind swept the Channel, and when day broke nothing could be seen but cloud and rain. Widdowson, who had rested little, was in a heavy, taciturn mood; Monica, on the other hand, talked gaily, seeming not to observe her companion’s irresponsiveness. She was glad of the wild sky; now they would see another aspect of island life — the fierce and perilous surges beating about these granite shores.

They had brought with them a few books, and Widdowson, after breakfast, sat down by the fire to read. Monica first of all wrote a letter to her sister; then, as it was still impossible to go out, she took up one of the volumes that lay on a side-table in their sitting-room, novels left by former lodgers. Her choice was something or other with yellow back. Widdowson, watching all her movements furtively, became aware of the pictured cover.

‘I don’t think you’ll get much good out of that,’ he remarked, after one or two efforts to speak.

‘No harm, at all events,’ she replied good-humouredly.

‘I’m not so sure. Why should you waste your time? Take “Guy Mannering,” if you want a novel.’

‘I’ll see how I like this first.’

He felt himself powerless, and suffered acutely from the thought that Monica was in rebellion against him. He could not understand what had brought about this sudden change. Fear of losing his wife’s love restrained him from practical despotism, yet he was very near to uttering a definite command.

In the afternoon it no longer rained, and the wind had less violence. They went out to look at the sea. Many people were gathered about the harbour, whence was a fine view of the great waves that broke into leaping foam and spray against the crags of Sark. As they stood thus Occupied, Monica heard her name spoken in a friendly voice — that of Mrs. Cosgrove.

‘I have been expecting to see you,’ said the lady. ‘We arrived three days ago.’

Widdowson, starting with surprise, turned to examine the speaker. He saw a woman of something less than middle age, unfashionably attired, good-looking, with an air of high spirits; only when she offered her hand to him did he remember having met her at Miss Barfoot’s. To be graceful in a high wind is difficult for any man; the ungainliness with which he returned Mrs. Cosgrove’s greeting could not have been surpassed, and probably would have been much the same even had he not, of necessity, stood clutching at his felt hat.

The three talked for a few minutes. With Mrs. Cosgrove were two persons, a younger woman and a man of about thirty — the latter a comely and vivacious fellow, with rather long hair of the orange-tawny hue. These looked at Monica, but Mrs. Cosgrove made no introduction.

‘Come and see me, will you?’ she said, mentioning her address. ‘One can’t get much in the evenings; I shall be nearly always at home after dinner, and we have music — of a kind.’

Monica boldly accepted the invitation, said she would be glad to come. Then Mrs. Cosgrove took leave of them, and walked landwards with her companions.

Widdowson stood gazing at the sea. There was no misreading his countenance. When Monica had remarked it, she pressed her lips together, and waited for what he would say or do. He said nothing, but presently turned his back upon the waves and began to walk on. Neither spoke until they were in the shelter of the streets; then Widdowson asked suddenly  —

‘Who is that person?’

‘I only know her name, and that she goes to Miss Barfoot’s.’

‘It’s a most extraordinary thing,’ he exclaimed in high irritation. ‘There’s no getting out of the way of those people.’

Monica also was angry; her cheeks, reddened by the wind, grew hotter.

‘It’s still more extraordinary that you should object so to them.’

‘Whether or no — I do object, and I had rather you didn’t go to see that woman.’

‘You are unreasonable,’ Monica answered sharply. ‘Certainly I shall go and see her.’

‘I forbid you to do so! If you go, it will be in defiance of my wish.’

‘Then I am obliged to defy your wish. I shall certainly go.’

His face was frightfully distorted. Had they been in a lonely spot, Monica would have felt afraid of him. She moved hurriedly away in the direction of their lodgings, and for a few paces he followed; then he checked himself, turned round about, took an opposite way.

With strides of rage he went along by the quay, past the hotels and the smaller houses that follow, on to St. Sampson. The wind, again preparing for a tempestuous night, beat and shook and at moments all but stopped him; he set his teeth like a madman, and raged on. Past the granite quarries at Bordeaux Harbour, then towards the wild north extremity of the island, the sandy waste of L’Ancresse. When darkness began to fall, no human being was in his range of sight. He stood on one spot for nearly a quarter of an hour, watching, or appearing to watch, the black, low-flying scud.

Their time for dining was seven. Shortly before this Widdowson entered the house and went to the sitting-room; Monica was not there. He found her in the bed-chamber, before the looking-glass. At the sight of his reflected face she turned instantly.

‘Monica!’ He put his hands on her shoulders, whispering hoarsely, ‘Monica! don’t you love me?’

She looked away, not replying.

‘Monica!’

And of a sudden he fell on his knees before her, clasped her about the waist, burst into choking sobs.

‘Have you no love for me? My darling! My dear, beautiful wife! Have you begun to hate me?’

Tears came to her eyes. She implored him to rise and command himself.

‘I was so violent, so brutal with you. I spoke without thinking —’

‘But why should you speak like that? Why are you so unreasonable? If you forbid me to do simple things, with not the least harm in them, you can’t expect me to take it like a child. I shall resist; I can’t help it.’

He had risen and was crushing her in his arms, his hot breath on her neck, when he began to whisper  —

‘I want to keep you all to myself. I don’t like these people — they think so differently — they put such hateful ideas into your mind — they are not the right kind of friends for you —’

‘You misunderstand them, and you don’t in the least understand me. Oh, you hurt me, Edmund!&rsquo............