The Woman Who Did | Page 9

would make us Free,
and I felt he was right. It would open our eyes, and emancipate us from social and moral
slaveries. So I made up my mind, at the same time, that whenever I found the Truth I
would not scruple to follow it to its logical conclusions, but would practise it in my life,
and let it make me Free with perfect freedom. Then, in search of Truth, I got my father to
send me to Girton; and when I had lighted on it there half by accident, and it had made
me Free indeed, I went away from Girton again, because I saw if I stopped there I could
never achieve and guard my freedom. From that day forth I have aimed at nothing but to
know the Truth, and to act upon it freely; for, as Tennyson says,--
'To live by law Acting the law we live by without fear, And because right is right to
follow right, Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'"

She broke off suddenly, and looking up, let her eye rest for a second on the dark thread of
clambering pines that crest the down just above Brockham. "This is dreadfully
egotistical," she cried, with a sharp little start. "I ought to apologize for talking so much
to you about my own feelings."
Alan gazed at her and smiled. "Why apologize," he asked, "for managing to be interesting?
You, are not egotistical at all. What you are telling me is history,--the history of a soul,
which is always the one thing on earth worth hearing. I take it as a compliment that you
should hold me worthy to hear it. It is a proof of confidence. Besides," he went on, after a
second's pause, "I am a man; you are a woman. Under those circumstances, what would
otherwise be egotism becomes common and mutual. When two people sympathize with
one another, all they can say about themselves loses its personal tinge and merges into
pure human and abstract interest."
Herminia brought back her eyes from infinity to his face. "That's true," she said frankly.
"The magic link of sex that severs and unites us makes all the difference. And, indeed, I
confess I wouldn't so have spoken of my inmost feelings to another woman."

III.

From that day forth, Alan and Herminia met frequently. Alan was given to sketching, and
he sketched a great deal in his idle times on the common. He translated the cottages from
real estate into poetry. On such occasions, Herminia's walks often led her in the same
direction. For Herminia was frank; she liked the young man, and, the truth having made
her free, she knew no reason why she should avoid or pretend to avoid his company. She
had no fear of that sordid impersonal goddess who rules Philistia; it mattered not to her
what "people said," or whether or not they said anything about her. "Aiunt: quid aiunt?
aiant," was her motto. Could she have known to a certainty that her meetings on the
common with Alan Merrick had excited unfavorable comment among the old ladies of
Holmwood, the point would have seemed to her unworthy of an emancipated soul's
consideration. She could estimate at its true worth the value of all human criticism upon
human action.
So, day after day, she met Alan Merrick, half by accident, half by design, on the slopes of
the Holmwood. They talked much together, for Alan liked her and understood her. His
heart went out to her. Compact of like clay, he knew the meaning of her hopes and
aspirations. Often as he sketched he would look up and wait, expecting to catch the faint
sound of her light step, or see her lithe figure poised breezy against the sky on the
neighboring ridges. Whenever she drew near, his pulse thrilled at her coming,-- a
somewhat unusual experience with Alan Merrick. For Alan, though a pure soul in his
way, and mixed of the finer paste, was not quite like those best of men, who are, so to
speak, born married. A man with an innate genius for loving and being loved cannot long
remain single. He MUST marry young; or at least, if he does not marry, he must find a
companion, a woman to his heart, a help that is meet for him. What is commonly called

prudence in such concerns is only another name for vice and cruelty. The purest and best
of men necessarily mate themselves before they are twenty. As a rule, it is the selfish, the
mean, the calculating, who wait, as they say, "till they can afford to marry." That vile
phrase scarcely veils hidden depths of depravity. A man who is really a man, and who has
a