E. F. Knight

“ Mary knelt down, pale and trembling.
"I swear it," she whispered.
"Remember! as long as you live, if I, or any of the Sisterhood, at any time, invite you to visit them or meet them anywhere—you must not go. Avoid us all for ever. If you act otherwise you will die."
"But, oh! dear mother! what a cruel promise to exact from me," and the girl embraced the woman. "I must see you, you cannot mean that."
Catherine drew herself back quickly, as if stung by the girl's affection. ”

“ Mary answered not a word. She was overawed by this man. She felt as if she could have sunk into the ground with her sense of shame and degradation. "What, this good man believes that I am good," she thought. "He has faith in me—affection for me! He loves me for my kindness to the sick—me, that am training to be a murderess—me, a baby-killer! Oh, the horror of the thing—the despair of my position!" She realized bitterly how deep, how irreconcilable must be her estrangement from her race. "She must never know love—she must steel her heart—crush her sympathies, and, oh! ”

“ Duncan, I am the most miserable of men—I am the slave of half-a-dozen vices. I have drunk them all to the dregs, yet I am not blasé; I wish to God I were. No, I still love the world, love my vices more than ever, but cannot enjoy them—and in that is the hell of it. I hate respectability; I hate work. I love dissipation, and can't dissipate. I look at steady fellows grinding away for little incomes and I hate them, I hate myself. No one can pity me—it's all my own fault. I feel sick and mad sometimes with regret, almost to killing myself—yes, with regret, and what for? ”

“ Harry—you don't understand—sometimes the whole world seems to slip away from me. I feel as if my soul was being carried right away into some dark place—and I leave memory and love and everything but sensation behind me—I cannot think then, Harry. Tell me quick, [333] for I can understand now. Tell me at once, or the darkness will come again, and it will be too late!"
"My darling! my darling! The darkness will never come to you again. Mary, dear, listen to me. I know your secret, and your enemies can never trouble you more." ”

“ How could such a society exist unless deserters were removed beyond all possibility of their becoming traitors?
So Catherine sat in the deserted room awaiting the two Sisters who were to decide her darling's doom. How dreary that room now appeared to the miserable creature! There was no Mary there now to lighten it, and she knew that there never again would be. The only human affection of her heart had been ruthlessly trampled upon. Were it not for the scheme she would have died; but she still had that to care for, and for that alone she must live for the remainder of her loveless life. ”

“ Duncan. I can bear no more of this."
They walked along the path in silence for a few minutes, she with a heart aching with its misery, he puzzled, not knowing what to make of her behaviour, and feeling a strange mixture of joy and sorrow.
At last he spoke, and there was a triumphant ring in his voice. "Mary, you shall be mine! We love each other. In that all-absorbing love we will forget all your secret whatever it may be." He went on in fierce accents, carried away by his passion. "Yes, Mary! in spite of crime, or madness, or the power of hell, it shall be—Oh, my dear! ”

“ Now, Mary! don't! don't! My dear child, I cannot bear it!" for the girl had seized her hand and was kissing it passionately, while she shook with a paroxysm of sobs.
"Oh, mother! mother! I am so miserable—without your love I should die! It is the only thing that makes life bearable. I cannot be strong and brave like you"—raising her head and looking admiringly at her through her tears—"but your love will make me braver too. Why are you not angry with me for being so silly and so weak?"
The poor child hardly suspected herself what this longing for affection signified. ”

“ Oh, Harry! you will kill me if you won't grant me this. I tell you you will kill me and your child, too."
"My darling! my poor little darling! do not be so agitated. I will promise you this. Calm yourself, Mary; you can rely on me to carry out all your wishes."
"That is it! I must feel that I can rely on you or I shall die. Do not promise me this merely to humour me, Harry—to humour what you think is a morbid fancy. When I am lying ill, dear, I must feel that friends are watching my baby as I would myself. Oh, Harry! ”

“ The doctor had, of late, found himself constantly thinking tenderly of this lonely, sad-looking girl, whose only companion was the frivolous Susan. He had, to a certain extent, guessed the cause of her sorrow, living as she did with the half-insane atheist and revolutionist he knew Mrs. King to be. He felt a great pity for the beautiful unprotected creature, in whom he saw such sweet possibilities of love and all the graces and good qualities of woman. The love that was coming to him was deep and strong and fierce as was his nature, and the girl was beginning to divine this. ”

“ She lay there on the ground, her head hidden in her hands, and the piteous words came out between her choking sobs.
"Oh, why was I ever born?... Why were any men or women ever born? Let me die at once; life is too horrible.... Oh, mistress! Oh, mother! you say you love me; kill me now then; kill me at once, and spare me this life—this terrible life."
But Catherine had now steeled her heart. She hardly heard the pitiful pleading. Her soul was filled with a wild enthusiasm as she thought of her long-matured schemes, now so soon to bear fruit. ”

“ Then I have nothing more to live for. Oh, pardon me, Miss King! Why should I speak to you of my happiness or misery? What a selfish being I am, even in my love for you? And yet I do not think that it is altogether selfish. I know that I would willingly endure endless misery if by that I could lighten your burden, my child. Mine is a love that, be it selfish or unselfish, fills my whole being. Oh, Mary! cannot you love me a little? I would so endeavour to make your life a happy one. ”

“ I feel that. Now that I know so much, now that I know that all this religion that keeps society together is a fable, I feel as if I was no longer as other people, as if I was some other sort of being, standing quite apart from my fellow-creatures, with such different instincts and ideas that we can never understand each other again, that there can never more be pleasant sympathies between us."
Susan again laughed her disagreeable laugh. "Dear me! Why, you are a sort of Miltonic Satan, Mary; but it's too late to rant on in this ignorance-is-bliss style, now, my girl." ”

“ Then she pulled herself together again, and said, in a dreamy voice: "Mary, these Christians believe that their merciful God [86] killed all the first-born of the Egyptians in one night because they had enslaved his people and would not let them go. But that slavery was as nothing to that of the down-trodden millions of Europe."
The young girl felt as if her heart was becoming cold and dead within her, but her will was not hers, and she believed altogether in the righteousness of the cause. She knew that it was her duty to become one of the assassins—to save humanity by being a baby-killer. ”

“ Put the idea altogether out of your mind that whatever you tell me can make any difference. Mary! were you the lowest of creatures, I would love you all the more. It would be all the sweeter to know that I had saved you. Whatever you are, I am your lover, your slave. Ah, Mary! with such a love as ours will be, we will be the happiest of people. In spite of anything that has been, you will be all the world to me until death, Mary!—until death."
The man had made the girl's heart thrill responsive to his own great passion, and she could conceal this no longer. ”

“ The nurse, thinking to humour her poor crazed mistress, pretended to examine the baby, though her own eyes were really as dim with tears as were the mother's. "No, ma'am, I assure you that there is nothing at all—nothing. The little darling is all right; but now you must go to bed, poor dear; you will be very ill if you don't. For your little baby's sake go to bed, and try and rest."
Mary, now as docile as a child, allowed herself to be put into her bed, and sobbed herself asleep—a broken slumber full of frightful dreams, from which she awoke into as painful a delirium. ”

“ The girl loved a man. She had herself confessed to it. She must die.
Then her reason, if reason it could be called, returned to her for a moment. She hardened her heart. Was not Mary a traitor to the cause? The safety of the Sisterhood, the success of this grand scheme, called for her death. She must die.
But yet, she thought, how was the poor child to blame for [253] all this? Was it not her own cruel self—she, Catherine King—that had enticed Mary into the Secret Society, and led her into danger? But she smothered these fancies—steeled herself for her task. ”

“ Sister Susan laughed.
"You are not half a woman, Mary; why, you talk just like some silly young man might. Love a secret! of course I do. All women love secrets. Anything that smells of mystery and intrigue exerts a fascination on the feminine imagination. I should not care a bit to be a leader of revolution in the face of all the world—but to be an executioner of the unknown terror, the pitiless secret punishment that works in silence, that strikes in the dark, unseen, unexpected. ”

“ After this wild first burst of anguish had partly passed, another mood seized the girl. She leaped to her feet, and with eyes aflame with hate, and teeth set, exclaimed:
"Oh! oh! if there is a God how I hate him—no man, no devil could be as cruel as He is! Why has He made all this misery? Why has He created us at all? He has arranged things so that in order to save mankind from still worse suffering we have to kill innocent children. Oh, mother! we had better all die at once and leave the world to wild beasts." ”

“ He hesitated when he uttered the last words, and waited with an intense anxiety for her reply.
"I do!" she said with a simple earnestness, "I love you very much."
"My darling!" he cried, "my whole life is yours. Even if you still refuse to marry me, I can never again love another after loving you. But what did you mean by those cruel words you spoke before? You told me to go from you, never to see you again. You said love between us was altogether impossible. You do not still think that? Oh, tell me, Mary. It is cruel to leave me in this fearful suspense." ”

“ Mary had known what wretchedness was during her old life at Brixton; but that was almost happiness to the mental agony she was now experiencing. For the image of one man was ever in her mind; the sound of his voice rang in her ears; and when the remembrance of his burning kisses came to her, as it often did, her cheek flushed and her heart beat with a flood of new emotions that terrified her. ”

“ Mary shrunk back from her. She was shocked and frightened at this unwonted display of profound affection. She felt sick with shame and sorrow, for she knew she did not deserve all this love; she knew that when she told her story, all the woman's triumphant happiness would change again to a bitterer misery and hate than ever. How to tell her kind protectress that she had deceived her—that she did love—though not Hudson, and that this was a live love, not a dead one! ”

“ Catherine replied: then noticing at the head of the paper the lithographed words, Mrs. Anderson's registry for servants, she went on: "You are not looking out for a place are you?"
She asked this doubtfully after glancing at Mary; for the girl, though plainly dressed, had anything but the appearance of a domestic servant.
"Yes, ma'am, I am."
On hearing this the enthusiastic woman felt a joy as if her wildest ambition had been realised. She certainly could read character well, and she distinguished the power that lay in Mary Grimm. She felt almost certain that she had found her pupil at last. ”

“ Even a coward will become recklessly brave when possessed by some strong passion. Susan was at heart a coward, yet she now did what she well knew was an extremely imprudent thing. She could not control herself; her malice overcame her fear of consequences. She so hated Mary, the girl who she believed had robbed her of two lovers, that she could not resist the dear temptation of torturing her, of watching her agony as she played with her feelings like a cat with a mouse, though she was aware how perilous the amusement was. ”