The domestic existence of unmated women together, though it is full of secret exasperations, also has its hours of charm--a charm honied, perverse, and unique.

Hilda felt the charm.
But she was suddenly sad, and she again found pleasure in her sadness.
She was sad because her adventure was over--over too soon and too easily.

She thought, now, that really she would have preferred a catastrophe as the end of it.

She had got what she desired; but she was no better off than she had been before the paralytic stroke of Mr.
Skellorn.

Domesticity had closed in on her once more.