has been manifested. She was conscious of something within herself which
she could not get at, over which she had no control.

With quivering lips she sat and wondered what she could do to hurt this
man. She did not only want to inflict bodily pain, but that other
gnawing pain of the heart which she herself was now feeling for the first
time. And through it all there ran the one thought that he must die. It
was strange that hate should first teach her that love is a living,
undeniable reality in the lives of all of us. She had never realised
this before. Her bringing-up, her surroundings, all her teaching had
been that money and a great house, and servants, and carriages were the
good things of this life, the things to be sought after.

She had been conscious of a vague admiration for Seymour Michael, and
that was the full extent of her knowledge of herself. This admiration
took the worldly form of a conviction that he was destined one day to be
a great man, and she had a strongly developed, common-minded desire to be
a great lady.

There are some things in this life which to a moderate intelligence are
quite unmistakable. Most of us, having left childhood behind, recognise
at once an earthquake, and death. Love is as unmistakable when it really
comes. And Anna Agar, having suddenly learnt to hate Seymour Michael,
knew that she had loved him with that one all-absorbing love which comes
but once to a woman.

She was not a deep-thinking or a subtle woman. Her actions were usually
based upon impulse, and her one all-absorbing desire now was to see him,
to speak to him face to face. In this indefinite longing there was
probably a vulgar love of vituperation--the taint of her low-born