hereditary, and continue from generation to generation."

Again Mrs. Orton Beg felt herself checked.

"Where did you hear all this, Evadne!" she asked,

"I never heard it. I read--and I thought," she answered. "But I am only
now beginning to understand," she added. "I suppose moral axioms are
always the outcome of pained reflection. Knowledge cries to us in vain as
a rule before experience has taken the sharp edge off our egotism--by
experience, I mean the addition of some personal feeling to our
knowledge."

"I don't understand you in the least, Evadne," Mrs. Orton Beg replied.

"Your husband was a good man," Evadne answered indirectly. "You have never
thought about what a woman ought to do who has married a bad one--in an
emergency like mine, that is. You think I should act as women have been
always advised to act in such cases, that I should sacrifice myself to
save that one man's soul. I take a different view of it. I see that the
world is not a bit the better for centuries of self-sacrifice on the
woman's part and therefore I think it is time we tried a more effectual
plan. And I propose now to sacrifice the man instead of the woman."

Mrs. Orton Beg was silent.

"Have you nothing to say to me, auntie?" Evadne asked at last,
caressingly.

"I do not like to hear you talk so, Evadne. Every word you say seems to