Prudence wondered whether this unnatural dislike for her own offspring resulted from the shame with which its birth had covered her, or was the inevitable consequence of the revulsion of feeling which had swept from her heart every kindly emotion which must have drawn her once towards the man she now professed aversion for. The man who had injured her had a lot to answer for. If ever it lay in her power to hurt him in return it was fairly certain that she would not hesitate to use her opportunity. The silence which she maintained in regard to his name was no guarantee of a wish to shield him; it suggested rather a caution which awaited its hour to strike. The meeting left Prudence with a feeling of depression. It did not decrease her pity, but it lessened her liking for the girl to discover her attitude of bitter resentment against the helpless mite she had brought into the world. And it set her thinking about marriage in a new light. Was it possible to cease to love a man one had loved once passionately? And could a woman grow to hate the children of a loveless marriage? If these matters were beyond the control of human will power, it seemed that it might be so. Here was an example of it anyway, though it might be a bad example. Until that talk with Bessie Clapp it had never occurred to Prudence that a woman could dislike her own child. It was one of the inexplicable problems of life. Prudence reached home to discover that she was late. Miss Agatha met her in the hall, already dressed for the evening meal, which was the most important function of the day, and at which no one was expected to put in a tardy appearance. Miss Agatha glanced from the warning face of the great clock at the foot of the staircase to the sweet flushed face of her young sister, and from thence to her dust-soiled shoes. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "Don't you see the time?" "I'll hurry," Prudence answered. "It won't take me three minutes to change. I've been for a tramp." "You have a deceitful habit," Miss Agatha admonished her, "of slipping away from the house without informing anyone. If you were less selfish it might occur to you that your sisters would like to accompany you occasionally. I can't understand why you prefer to walk alone." "I shall be late," Prudence said, with her foot on the stair, "if I stay to go into that now." And with a rebellious face she ran upstairs, leaving Miss Agatha, aghast and indignant, looking up from the foot of the staircase after her vanishing figure. Prudence was getting altogether out of hand. "She tramps the country," William affirmed on learning the trouble, "like a factory girl. I won't have my sister making herself so noticeable--mooning about the lanes and hanging over stiles. It--it isn't respectable." "I wish," Miss Agatha said, meanly shifting responsibility, "that you would put your foot down. If you were firm she might possibly respect your wishes. I can do nothing with her."