Free from the house Maggie and her aunt walked home in complete silence. Maggie's heart was a confusion of rage, surprise, loneliness and pride. No one had ever behaved like that to her before. And what had she done? What was there about her that people hated? ... Why? ... Why? She felt as though, in some way, it had all been Aunt Anne's fault. Why did not Aunt Anne speak? Well, if they all hated her she would go on her own way. She did not care. But alone in her room, her face, indignant, proud, quivering, surprising her in the long mirror by its strangeness, and causing her to feel, because it did not seem to belong to her, more lonely than ever, she burst out: "I can't stand it. I CAN'T stand it. I'll get away ... so soon as ever I can!" CHAPTER III MAGGIE AND MARTIN That moment in her bedroom altered for Maggie the course of all her future life. She had never before been, consciously, a rebel; she had, only a week before, almost acquiesced in the thought that she would remain in her aunts' house for the rest of her days; now Mr. Magnus, the Warlocks, and her new dress had combined to fire her determination. She saw, quite suddenly, that she must escape at the first possible moment. The house that had been until now the refuge into which she had escaped became the jumping-off place for her new adventure. Until now the things in the house had been there to receive her as one of themselves; from this moment they were there to prevent, if possible, her release. She felt everything instantly hostile. They all--Thomas the cat, Edward the parrot, the very sofas and chairs and cushions--were determined not to let her go. She saw, more than ever before, that her aunts were preparing some religious trap for her. They were very quiet about it; they did not urge her or bully her, but the subtle, silent influence went on so that the very stair-carpet, the very scuttles that held the coal, became secret messengers to hale her into the chapel and shut her in there for ever. After her first visit there the chapel became a nightmare to her--because, at once, she had felt its power. She had known--she had always known and it had not needed Mr. Magnus to tell her--that there was something in this religion--yes, even in the wretched dirt and disorder of her father's soul--but with that realisation that there was indeed something, had come also the resolved conviction that life could not be happy, simple, successful unless one broke from that power utterly, refused its dictates, gave no hearing to its messages, surrendered nothing--absolutely nothing--to its influence. Had not some one said to her once, or was it not in her little red A Kempis, that "once caught one might never escape again"?