Chapter IX - Page 2

a fugitive or a criminal. She had had to crawl away by stealth from that man, her keeper. She, a grown woman and a moral agent, with a will of her own and a heart and a conscience, was held so absolutely in serfdom as a particular man's thrall and chattel, that she could not even go out to visit a friend without these degrading subterfuges of creeping in unperceived by a back entrance, and talking low under her breath, lest a lodging-house crone should find out what she was doing. And all the world of England was so banded in league with the slave-driver against the soul he enslaved, that if Miss Blake had seen her she could hardly have come in: while, once in, she must tremble and whisper and steal about with muffled feet, for fear of discovery in this innocent adventure. He held his breath with stifled wrath. It was painful and degrading.

But he had no time just then to think much of all this, for there sat Frida, tremulous and shivering before his very eyes, trying hard to hide her beautiful white face in her quivering hands, and murmuring over and over again in a very low voice, like an agonised creature, "I couldn't bear not to be allowed to say good-bye to you for ever."

Bertram smoothed her cheek gently. She tried to prevent him, but he went on in spite of her, with a man's strong persistence. Notwithstanding his gentleness he was always virile. "Good-bye!" he cried. "Good-bye! why on earth good-bye, Frida? When I left you before dinner you never said one word of it to me."

"Oh, no," Frida cried, sobbing. "It's all Robert, Robert! As soon as ever you were gone, he called me into the library--which always means he's going to talk over some dreadful business with me--and he said to me, 'Frida, I've just heard from Phil that this man Ingledew, who's chosen to foist himself upon us, holds opinions and sentiments which entirely unfit him from being proper company for any lady. Now, he's been coming here a great deal too often of late. Next time he calls, I wish you to tell Martha you're not at home to him.'"

Bertram looked across at her with a melting look in his honest blue eyes. "And you came round to tell me of it, you dear thing!" he cried, seizing her hand and grasping it hard. "O Frida, how kind of you!"

Frida trembled from head to foot. The blood throbbed in her pulse. "Then you're not vexed with me," she sobbed out, all tremulous with gladness.

"Vexed with you! O Frida, how could I be vexed? You poor child! I'm so pleased, so glad, so grateful!"

Frida let her hand rest unresisting in his. "But, Bertram," she murmured,--"I must call you Bertram--I couldn't help it, you know. I like you so much, I couldn't let you go for ever without just saying good-bye to you."

"You don't like me; you love me," Bertram answered with masculine