“Go on, girl. Does that twister want oiling? Feed it, woman, feed it,” said Cæsar. “His father should have been Dempster before him,” said John, the clerk. “Would have been too, only he went crooked when he married on yonder woman. She's through though, and what more natural----” The rope stopped again, and Kate's voice, hard and thick, came from the farther end of it. “His mother being dead, eh?” “It was the mother that done for the father, anyway,” said the clerk. “Consequently,” said Kate, “he is to praise God that his mother is gone!” “That girl wants a doctor,” muttered Jonaique. “The man couldn't drag the woman up after him,” began the clerk. “It's always the way----” “Just that,” said Kate, with bitter irony. “Of coorse, I'm not for saying it was the woman's fault entirely----” “Don't apologise for her,” said Kate. “She's gone and forgotten, and that being so, her son has now a chance of being Deemster.” “So he has,” shouted Cæsar, “and not second Dempster only, but first Dempster itself in time, and go on with the twister.” Kate laughed loudly, and cried, “Why don't you keep it up when your hand's in? First Deemster Christian, and then Sir Philip Christian, and then Lord Christian, and then----But you're talking nonsense, and you're a pack of tattlers. There's no thought of making Philip Christian a Deemster, and no hope of it and no chance of it, and I trust there never will be.” So saying, she flung the twister on the floor and rushed out of the mill, sobbing hysterically. “Dr. Clucas is wonderful for females and young girls,” said Jonaique. “It's that Ross again,” muttered Cæsar. “And he'll have her yet,” said Kelly, the postman. “I'd see her dead first,” said Cæsar. “It would be the jaws of hell and the mouth of Satan.” That she who loved Philip to distraction should be the first to abuse and defame him was agony near to madness, for Kate knew where she stood. It was not merely that Philip's success was separating them, not merely that the conventions of life, its usages, its manners, and its customs were putting worlds between them. The pathos of the girl's position was no accidental thing. It was a deeper, older matter; it was the same to-day as it had been yesterday and would be to-morrow; it began in the garden of Eden and would go on till the last woman died---it was the natural inferiority of woman in relation to man. She had the same passions as Philip, and was moved by the same love. But she was not free. Philip alone was free. She had to wait on Philip's will, on Philip's word. She saw Philip slipping away from her, but she could not snatch at him before he was gone; she could not speak first; she could not say, “I love you; stay with me!” She was a woman, only a woman! How wretched to be a woman! How cruel!