Will pass out through the sweetness of a song

Beyond it, voyaging the uphill road,— Even so mine wandered from the things I heard

To those I suffered. It was afterward

I shaped the resolution to the act.

For many hours we talked. What

need to talk? The fate was clear and close; it

touched my eyes; But still the generous lady tried to keep The case afloat, and would not let it go. And argued, struggled upon Marian's

side,

Which was not Romney's! though she

little knew What ugly monster would take up the

end.—

What griping death within the drowning death

Was ready to complete my sum of death,'

I thought,—Perhaps he's sliding now

the ring Upon that woman's finger. ,

She went on: The lady, failing to prevail her way, Upgathered my torn wishes from the ground

And pieced them with her strong benevolence;

And, as I thought I could breathe freer air

Away from England, going without pause.

Without farewell,—just breaking with a jerk

The blossomed offshoot from my thorny life,—

She promised kindly to provide the means,

With instant passage to the colonies And full protection,' would commit me straight

'To one who once had been her waiting-maid

'And had the customs of the world, intent

'On changing England for Australia 'Herself to carry out her fortune so.' For which I thanked the Lady Waldemar,

As men upon their death-beds thank

last friends Who lay the pillow straight: it is not

much,

And yet 'tis all of which they are capable,

This lying smoothly in a bed to die. And so, 'twas fixed ;—and so, from day to day,

The woman named came in to visit me'

Just then, the girl stopped speaking,—

sate erect, And stared at me as if I had been a

ghost,

(Perhaps I looked as white as any ghost)

With large-eyed horror. * Does God

make,' she said, 'All sorts of creatures really, do yo:t

think 1

Or is it that the Devil slavers them
So excellently, that we come to doubt
Who's stronger, He who makes, or he

who mars? I never liked the woman's face or voice Or ways: it made me blush to look at

her;

It made me tremble if she touched my hand;

And when she spoke a fondling word I shrank

As if one hated me who had power to hurt;

And every time she came, my veins ran cold

As somebody were walking on my grave.

At last I spoke to Lady Waldemar: 'Could such an one be good to trust?' I asked.

Whereat the lady stroked my cheek and laughed

Her silver-laugh—(one must be born to laugh,

To put such music in it) ' Foolish girl, 'Your scattered wits are gathering wool beyond

'The sheep-walk reaches !—leave the

thing to me' And therefore, half in trust, and half in

scorn

That I had heart still for another fer.r

In such a safe despair, I left the thing.
* The rest is short. I was obedient:
I wrote my letter which delivered him
From Marian to his own prosperities.
And followed that had guide. The

lady ?—hush,
I never blame the lady Ladies who
Sit high, however willing to look down,
Will scarce see lower than their dainty

feet:

And Lady Waldemar saw less than I, With what a Devil's daughter I went forth

Along the swine's road, down the precipice,

In such a curl of hell-foam caught and choked,

No shriek of soul in anguish could pierce through

To fetch some help. They say there's

help in heaven For all such cries. But if one cries from

hell . . .

What then ?—the heavens are deaf upon that side,

'A woman . . hear me,—let me make it plain,—

A woman . . not a monster . . both her breasts

Made right to suckle habes . . she took me off

A woman also, young and ignorant And heavy with my grief, my two poor eyes

Near washed away with weeping, till the trees,

The blessed unaccustomed trees and fields

Ran either side the train like stranger dogs

Unworthy of any notice,—took me off,
So dull, so blind, so only half alive.
Not seeing by what road, nor by what
ship,

Nor toward what place, nor to what end of all.

Men carry a corpse thus,—past the doorway, past

The garden-gate, the children's playground, up

The green lane,—then they leave it in the pit,

To sleep and find corruption, cheek to cheek

With him who stinks since Friday.

'But suppose; lb go down with one's soul into the grave,

To go down half dead, half alive, I say, And wake up with corruption, . . cheek to cheek .

With him who stinks since Friday!

There it is, And that's the horror oft, Miss Leigh.

'You feel? You understand?—no, do not look at

me,

But understand. The blank, blind,

weary way Which led . . where'er it led . . away at

least;

The shifted ship . . to Sydney or to France,

Still bound, wherever else, to another land;

The swooning sickness on the dismal sea,

The foreign shore, the shameful house, the night,

The feeble blood, the heavy-headed grief, ...

No need to bring their damnable drugged cup,

And yet they brought it. Hell's so prodigal

Of devil's gifts . . . hunts liberally in packs.

Will kill no poor small creature of the wilds

But fifty red wide throats must smoke at it.

As His at me . . when waking up r.t last . .

I told you that I waked up in the grave.

'Enough so !—it is plain enough so. True,

We wretches cannot tell out all our wrong

Without offence to decent happy folk.
I know that we must scrupulously hint
With half-words, delicate reserves, the
thing

Which no one scrupled we should feel in full.

Let pass the rest, then ; only leave my oath

Upon this sleeping child—man's violence

Not man's seduction, made me what I am,

As lost as . . I told him I should be lost: When mothers fail us, can we help ourselves?

That's fatal !—And you call it being lost,

That down came next day's noon and

caught me there Half gibbering and half raving on the

floor,

And wondering what had happened up

in heaven, That suns should dare to shine when

God himself
Was certainly abolished.

'I was mad, How many weeks, I know not,—many weeks.

I think they let me go, when I was mad. They feared my eyes and loosed me, as

boys might A mad dog which they had tortured.

Up and down I went by road and village, over tracts Of open foreign country, large and

strange,

Crossed everywhere by long thin poplar-lines

Like fingers of some ghastly skeleton Hand

Through sunlight and through moonlight evermore

Pushed out from hell itself to pluck mc hack,

And resolute to get me, slow and sure; While every roadside Christ upon his cross

Hung reddening through his gory

wounds at me. And shook his nails in anger and came

down

To follow a mile after, wading up

The low vines and green wheat, crying

'Take the girl! 'She's none of mine from henceforth.'

Then I knew (But this is somewhat dimmer than the

rest)

The charitable peasants gave me bread And leave to sleep in straw: and twice they tied,

\t parting, Mary's image round my neck—

How heavy it seemed! as heavy as a stone;

A woman has been strangled with less weight:

I threw it in a ditch to keep it clean And ease my breath a little, when none looked;

I did not need such safeguards :—brutal men

Stopped short. Miss Leigh, in insult,

when they had seen My face,—I must have had an awful

look.

And so I lived : the weeks passed on, —I lived.

'Twas living my old tramp-life o'er again,

But, this time, in a dream, and hunted round

By some prodigious Dream-fear at my hack,

Which ended yet: my brain cleared presently

And there I sate, one evening, by the road,

I, Marian Erie, myself, alone, undone,
Facing a sunset low upon the flats
As if it were the finish of all time,
The great red stone upon my sepulchre,
Which angels were too weak to roll
away.

SEVENTH BOOK.

THE woman's motive? shall we daub ourselves

With finding roots for nettles? 'tis soft clay

And easily explored. She had the means,

The monies, by the lady's liberal grace. In trust for that Australian scheme and me,

Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands

And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed.

She served me (after all it was not strange;

'Twas only what my mother would have done}