This society was not avowedly a branch of the formidable Nihilist confederation; yet, most of the sisters entertained a belief that such really was the case, though the secret was preserved by Catherine King and one or two others of the inner circle alone. Catherine was reputed to be the agent of the Nihilists. She encouraged this belief by a well-calculated reticence when the subject of Nihilism was mentioned. She well knew how a little mystery of this kind strengthened her hand.
No ominous name suggestive of blood and destruction had been given to this society. It was simply entitled—THE SISTERS.
Mrs. King—as she was always called, though there was no reason to suppose that she had ever been married—lived with one maid-servant in a little house in a northern suburb of London.
In the parlour of this house, four of the inner circle were sitting one evening. It was here that they always did meet to discuss their plans, and yet that maid-servant, who was of rather dull intelligence, did not entertain the least suspicion that her mistress was connected with any political societies whatever.
This was an important meeting—yet all looked innocent enough. The room was quietly furnished, rather bare of pretty trifles for a woman's, and in which the book-shelves were well filled with works on political economy, infidel philosophy, and sociology.
Like a woman thorough-going even to absurdity, she had cast away all more frivolous literature for good, on taking to these studies. There was not a novel—not a volume of poems in the room.
Four quiet-looking women, drinking tea and conversing calmly—not a very formidable conspiracy, this, to outward appearance; but Catherine King hated theatrical clap-trap: there were no melodramatic properties about this society. "The less fuss the better," she used to say, "for those that mean action."
Of the three women with Catherine King, only one was young—had pretensions to good looks—had been a mother; and she was the most ruthless, the most thorough-going of all, ready for any dark deed, loving cruelty for its own sake. Perhaps Susan Riley had been gentle once, but experiences, with which her youth, her beauty, and motherhood had something to do, had turned the course of her life, stopped the flowing of the milk of her affections, so that it returned on her souring, and made of her a fiend. It is but too easy for the masterful Man to thus drive away for ever the guardian angel of the woman, and leave her the possessed of devils.