“Your neighbours bore me! They are brutes who don’t understand that it is only during the night that the soul feels really free.” Hogg had managed to get him out upon the landing. “I’ll go, but on one condition, and that is that you come and dine with us to-morrow. Harriet will be delighted to see you. I apologize for having a horrible creature with us, Miss Hitchener . . . but she will be leaving in a day or two.” “Miss Hitchener? The sister of your soul?” “_She_, the sister of my soul?” cried Shelley. “She’s a crawling and contemptible worm. . . . We call her the Brown Demon.” But they had now reached the street. Hogg gently pushed his friend out of the house and closed the door behind him. * * * Next day at six o’clock, Hogg sent in his name to Harriet. She received him with enthusiasm. She looked younger, more blooming, and lovelier than ever. “What a separation this has been!” she said. “But it will not happen again. We are now going to live in London for ever!” Eliza sat apart in haughty silence. She gave Hogg a limp hand, without condescending to speak to him. “You’re looking delightfully well, Harriet.” “She? Oh, no, poor dear thing!” said Eliza in a lackadaisical voice. “Her nerves are in a fearful state. Most dreadfully shattered!” Hogg thought, “Nothing is changed in this house, one must take care what one says.” Shelley at this moment burst into the room like a cannon ball, and dinner was brought up. After dinner there were mysterious whisperings from Eliza into Harriet’s ear, who came obediently to bid Hogg good night, and to invite him to come again on Sunday morning. “It’s the day the Brown Demon is going, conversation will be so difficult. But you are always such good fun, you would be the greatest help to us. . . . Percy has told you about our Tormentor?” At the mention of Miss Hitchener’s name Eliza exhibited a deep but silent disgust. “She’s a horrible woman,” Harriet went on. “She tried to make Percy fall in love with her. She pretended that he did really love her, and that I was only good for the housekeeping. Percy has promised her £100 a year if only she will go.” Shelley confirmed this. He saw the imprudence of thus sacrificing a quarter of his income, but it was necessary. The young woman had lost her situation through him, and her reputation and health into the bargain, she added, thanks to their barbarous conduct. “She is really a horrible creature!” he said shuddering. “A superficial, ugly, hermaphroditical beast of a woman. I’ve never been so astonished at my bad taste as after spending four months with her. . . . How would Hell be, if such a woman were in Heaven? And she writes poetry! She has written an Elegy on the Rights of Woman, which begins: “All, all are men, the woman like the rest. . . .” He burst into one of his wild shouts of laughter.