Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/84

 memory was only of discontent and futile aspiration, but—Oh, if it were possible to be again as she was then, and yet keep the experience with which life had since endowed her! With no moral condemnation did she view the records of her rebellion; but how easy to see now that ignorance had been one of the worst obstacles in her path, and that, like all unadvised purchasers, she had paid a price that might well have been spared. A little more craft, a little more patience,—it is with these that the world is conquered. The world was her enemy, and had proved too strong; woman though she was,—only a girl striving to attain the place for which birth adapted her,—pursuing only her irrepressible instincts,—fate flung her to the ground pitilessly, and bade her live out the rest of her time in wretchedness.

No! There remained one more endeavour that was possible to her, one bare hope of saving herself from the extremity which only now she estimated at its full horror. If that failed, why, then, there was a way to cure all ills.

From her box, that in which were hidden away many heart-breaking mementoes of her life as an actress, she took out a sheet of