Clara Hopgood

It was settled that they should leave Fenmarket. Their departure

caused but little surprise. They had scarcely any friends, and it

was always conjectured that people so peculiar would ultimately find

their way to London. They were particularly desirous to conceal

their movements, and therefore determined to warehouse their

furniture in town, to take furnished apartments there for three

months, and then to move elsewhere. Any letters which might arrive

at Fenmarket for them during these three months would be sent to them

at their new address; nothing probably would come afterwards, and as

nobody in Fenmarket would care to take any trouble about them, their

trace would become obliterated. They found some rooms near Myddelton

Square, Pentonville, not a particularly cheerful place, but they

wished to avoid a more distant suburb, and Pentonville was cheap.

Fortunately for them they had no difficulty whatever in getting rid

of the Fenmarket house for the remainder of their term.

For a little while London diverted them after a fashion, but the

absence of household cares told upon them. They had nothing to do

but to read and to take dismal walks through Islington and Barnsbury,

and the gloom of the outlook thickened as the days became shorter and

the smoke began to darken the air. Madge was naturally more

oppressed than the others, not only by reason of her temperament, but

because she was the author of the trouble which had befallen them.

Her mother and Clara did everything to sustain and to cheer her.

They possessed the rare virtue of continuous tenderness. The love,

which with many is an inspiration, was with them their own selves,

from which they could not be separated; a harsh word could not

therefore escape from them. It was as impossible as that there

should be any failure in the pressure with which the rocks press

towards the earth's centre. Madge at times was very far gone in

melancholy. How different this thing looked when it was close at

hand; when she personally was to be the victim! She had read about

it in history, the surface of which it seemed scarcely to ripple; it

had been turned to music in some of her favourite poems and had lent

a charm to innumerable mythologies, but the actual fact was nothing

like the poetry or mythology, and threatened to ruin her own history

altogether. Nor would it be her own history solely, but more or less

that of her mother and sister.

Had she believed in the common creed, her attention would have been

concentrated on the salvation of her own soul; she would have found

her Redeemer and would have been comparatively at peace; she would

have acknowledged herself convicted of infinite sin, and hell would

have been opened before her, but above the sin and the hell she would

have seen the distinct image of the Mediator abolishing both.

Popular theology makes personal salvation of such immense importance

that, in comparison therewith, we lose sight of the consequences to

others of our misdeeds. The sense of cruel injustice to those who

loved her remained with Madge perpetually.