Of course if a friend steps round a corner, you lose sight of that friend. But you must get used to the windings of the road. If you are a suffragette, you have to be your own friend. You must not stretch out your hands to find the hands of another; you must keep them clenched by your side. On the other hand, even a suffragette is human—(I daresay you have doubted this)—and my suffragette was only a little less human than you or I. The fact must stand, therefore, that when she thought of the gardener in pain, she forgot to clench her fists. It may still be a mystery to you why the suffragette should expend ingenuity in running away from her only friend. If you are a rebel of thorough nature, you believe that your cause is such a good cause that no supporter can be worthy of it. And, in the effort to reach worth, you may possibly arrive, step by step, at the Theory of the Hair Shirt, to which my suffragette had attained. For in throwing her little weight on the side of the best cause she could see, she cowed: “All my life long to discard everything superfluously comfortable or easy. To despise peace, and to love loneliness....” This is the texture of the Hair Shirt worn beneath the armour of a rebel. You may call it hysteria. And perhaps you are perfectly right. But perhaps there are even better things than being perfectly right. The night on the Island falls as abruptly as though he who manages the curtain had let go the string by mistake. With the night came a trayful of supper for the suffragette, and with the supper came Albert, not of course in the useful rôle of supper purveyor, but only as an ornament. “This earthquake id Udiod Towd seebs to have beed quite a catastrophe.” “Quite,” agreed the suffragette. “I caddot picture ad earthquake,” continued Albert. “I suppose doboddy cad picture such ad urheard-of disaster.” “I can,” said the suffragette. “I expect my picture is all wrong, but it’s certainly there. I see it red and grey, which is the most vicious discord I know.” “Red ad grey?” repeated Albert. “Why red ad grey? What for idstadce is red, ad what grey?” “Why,” said the suffragette rather lamely, “I suppose the quaking is red, and the pain grey.” “You seeb to be talking dodsedse,” said Albert, with creditable toleration. “I expect the flabes are red, ad the sboke grey. However, go od with your picture.” “I think the world would suddenly give a lurch to one side, and you would wonder what had happened, and why you felt so sick. Before you realised anything else you would notice a sort of dazzle of chalk-white faces all round you.” “The people are dearly all degroes id Udiod Towd.” “Then you would understand, but still you wouldn’t believe that this thing was really happening to you. You would see the houses curtsey sideways in a leaping dust, and a house front, with its windows, all complete, would shoot across the street with an unbearable roar, pricked by cracking noises....” “Why would it dot fall od you?”