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better with her opportunities than you are doing with yours, Hermia.”
    â€œI may use them, now they have come. I have her example before me.”
    â€œI wonder if you could say what they will be. Well, it is no good to talk about it.”
    â€œNone. If it was any good a fair amount would be done by now.”
    Eliza walked out of the room as if she had not heard, and Madeline spoke in a grave tone.
    â€œHermia, must you go to such lengths with Mater? I don’t mean you should not say what you feel, but there is reason in everything.”
    â€œThen what do you mean? I say just what I feel.”
    â€œThere is no need to show yourself in this light. It will leave such a sorry memory.”
    â€œIt will leave a right one. I have always said it in my heart. And as I am going I dare to voice it. And I should not have escaped without doing so. I see what my bonds have been. And I see they are barely broken.”
    â€œWe saw them being assailed and wrenched apart,” said Angus. “And we see no one else will ever break them.”
    â€œThere must be bonds in every life,” said Madeline. “There are things in all of us that prove we need them.”
    â€œThere are,” said Sir Robert’s voice. “And you must cease to break them, Hermia. You are having your wish granted, in the face of Mater’s doubt and mine, and should be grateful to me, and more to her. I should not have granted it, if she had pressed her view. She is showing forbearance and tolerance. What are you showing?”
    â€œNeither at the time. But I have had to show them. And I should have to show them again. What I am showing is a resolve to live my own life according to myself. Whose life is it but mine? I am forced to show it and to go on showing it. I should be grateful to pursue my way in peace. There seems no end to it.”
    â€œWell, well, there is an end. You have faced us and conquered us, and take the spoils of the victor. We may live to see you are wise. We hope we shall, my dear. That we did not want the change does not mean we don’twant your success in it. We want it as much as you do. You take that knowledge with you.”
    He left them, as if bringing the matter to a fitting end, and Angus spoke at once.
    â€œI wished I dared to praise myself. It seems a family gift. Father and Mater and Hermia all have it. And I think Madeline has it in a way of her own.”
    â€œThen I should not ever use it. I am quite aware I am not all that I should be.”
    â€œI am so much more than I should be that I am ashamed of it. I have the gift after all, and can use it.”
    â€œWe are all ashamed of it,” said Roberta. “There is no credit in not being free. If the compulsions of our life were lifted, I wonder what would break forth. It might not be a case for the family gift.”
    â€œIt might not,” said Madeline. “Father is right. A certain amount of restraint is a safeguard. Hermia may not find her new life as different in that way as she expects.”
    â€œI shall find it different enough. It will be free from the forces that crush the impulse of life. That is all that I expect. I can hardly have learned to expect much.”
    â€œI wonder how long the feeling will last. It seems a rather indefinite one.”
    â€œAs long as the conditions here remain. As long as there is the memory of them. And that will be while I live.”
    â€œWhich is the braver thing?” said Angus. “To do as Hermia has done, or what we are to go on doing?”
    â€œWhat Hermia has done,” said Roberta. “The obvious can be true. What we should not dare to do. We can say that we show the deeper courage. But we know it is the depths of cowardice. Our hearts tell us.”
    â€œCourage can take different forms,” said Madeline. “We can think of many examples of it.”
    â€œIs your own life one of them?” said Hermia.
    â€œWe are not always