The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin

by Sir Hall Caine

Of course she turned towards the shore. It was glorious to be down there alone, on the ribbed sand, with the salt air on her lips and the odour of the seaweed in her nostrils and the rising sun glistening in her eyes over the shimmering and murmuring sea. But it was still sweeter to return by the sandy road, past the chancel of the old church (how silly to have been afraid of it!) and to see footsteps here and there—his and hers.

The world was astir by this time, with the sun riding high and the earth smoking from its night-long draughts of dew, the sheep munching the wet grass in the fields on either side, and the cattle lowing in the closed-up byres, waiting to be milked. But the white blind of Victor's room (she was sure it was Victor's) was still down, like a closed eyelid, and she had half a mind to throw a handful of gravel at it and then dart indoors.

Back in the house there were some embarrassing moments. Breakfast was rather a trying time after Victor came down, looking a little sheepish, and that last moment on the path was difficult, when he was holding the carriage door open and saying good-bye to her; but she could not deny herself that wave of the hand as they turned the corner of the drive—she was perfectly sure he must be looking after them.

After that—misery! Every day at Government House seemed to bring her an increasing heartache, and when she returned to College a fortnight later, and fell back into the swing of her former life there (the glowing and thrilling life she had described to Victor) a bitter struggle with herself began.

It was a struggle between the mysterious new-born desires of her awakening womanhood and the task she had supposed to be her duty—to consecrate her whole life to the liberation of her sex, giving up, like a nun if need be, all the joys that were for ever whispering in the ears of women, that she might devote herself body and soul to the salvation of her suffering sisters.

Three months passed in which Fenella believed herself to be the unhappiest girl in the world. Moments of guilty joy and defiance mingled with hours of self-reproach. And then dear, good people were sometimes so cruel! Miss Green, her father's housekeeper, never wrote without saying something about Victor Stowell. He was a student-at-law now, and was getting along wonderfully.

Once Miss Green enclosed a letter from Janet asking Fenella for her photograph. For nearly a week that was a frightful ordeal, but in the end the woman triumphed over the nun and she sent the picture.

"Dear Janet," she wrote, "it was very sweet of you to wish for my photograph to remind you of that dear and charming day I spent at Ballamoar, so I have been into Cambridge and had one specially taken for you, in the dress I wore on that lovely August afternoon which I shall never forget...."

It had been a tingling delight to write that letter, but the moment she had posted it, with the new Cambridge photograph, she could have died of vexation and shame—it must be so utterly obvious whom she had sent them to.

As the Christmas vacation approached she began to be afraid of herself. If she returned to the island she would be sure to see Victor Stowell (he must be in Douglas now) and that would be the end of everything.