them. There were plenty of other subjects to talk about. Miss Walton was, like everybody else, more than half in love with Joe.

Mrs. Mardell, after having polished the silver diligently, turned her attention to the room. She ordered the chairs, and flicked her duster about rather feebly, for she did not feel very "fit." Very queer, on the contrary! She could not have told you what it was, but she was mysteriously conscious of something excessive, outrageous, like pain lying in wait for her. She seemed to apprehend its nearness instinctively, as a patient seated in the dentist's chair is aware of the imminent grinding of the file. Perhaps it was the long-continued strain of the cold that was affecting her! The frost had lasted since before Christmas, and had been very severe. . . .

She paused. The little clock on the mantelpiece tinkled half past eleven. Supposing she were to give herself a slight moral fillip-go upstairs and try on her new dress, and see how it fitted after having been back" twice? She was sure in this way to obtain a sensation, pleasurable or otherwise.

She lit the gas stove in her room, and dismissed the dilatory housemaid. Then she dragged a tall cheval glass into position, having due regards to cross lights, and undressed. Her dainty underclothing appeared; she looked ten times prettier than she had done in the severe shirt, and she knew it, and stood for a few minutes before the mirror, complacently admiring herself, and in no hurry to don the heavily trimmed corsage that lay beside her, half in and half out of the flowered cardboard box, interleaved with tissue paper, and with intersecting lines of tape binding it into its cage. Her eyes rested on it sometimes, however, with feminine appreciation of the elaborate building of the silk lining, with its white bone cases crossing and recrossing the back, and the high collar fitting in under the very lobe of the ear. Still, she deferred the pleasing moment of assumption, standing still and preening herself, soft lappets of Valenciennes lace flowering out as a frame to the pink skin.

Suddenly, taken by surprise, without a cry or a moan, she cowered and was bent, bent nearly double, while agonising pangs shot through the framework of her body. Her eyes were glassed over with tears, and through them she stared out on the world, bewildered, peering to see from which point the next arrow of dolor would fall!

It came again; without fail, it came again; this time, no stabbing thrust, but a sword, driving, delving laboriously through her vitals in a lingering, painstaking manner. She was by now prepared and well frightened, and she groaned aloud. Her breasts rose and came together, as in some strange health exercise, under the laces and ribbons.

My God! Was it- ? Was the silver bowl going to be used at

last?

No, it could not be. The thought was dismissed as soon as

What a

formed. A chill on the liver? The extreme cold? fool she was to prance like a peacock in front of a glass for half an hour, half dressed! That silly stove gave no heat.

She gathered to her a dressing-gown that lay near, and sat still, cowering. A long pause! But she received no physical intimation of the recurrence of her agony. She boldly rose, defying it, and tore the new dress out of its rustling ward without stopping to untie the tapes that controlled it. With a screech of tissue paper, it yielded itself into her hands, and she put it on.

Then she laughed. The pain was forgotten. She wriggled about happily.

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'Yes, it still catches me .. just there! They must have it back. I'll go about it, on-let me see?"

Taking the precaution of putting her arms properly into the dressing-jacket this time, she wrapped the dress up again carefully, tied the white tapes across it, put the lid on firmly, and, with the little stylographic pen Joe had given her, methodically scored out her own name from the label, thus substituting that of the dressmaker printed large all over the box.

The exertion, slight as it was, roused again the smouldering fire of pain. She sat down helplessly on her bed; her eyes were like those of a dumb animal in the death anguish as she stared across at the reflection of her already distorted features in the glass Rolling to and fro, she grasped and relaxed alternately the fronts of her peignoir, knotted feverishly in her palm.

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What the divil is it?" she murmured. "I feel as if my life was going?"

She did not think of calling anyone-Vance or Gladys, the impotent housemaid; no one could help her. She was but a poor, human passage-way for these relentless throes that passed, Juggernaut-like, through her shrinking body. It was like a garden roller, when it was not like many scythes set on one axle, turning, twisting inside her. What had she ever done to suffer so? No child of Joe's could be so cruel and tear its mother thus! . . . She had not conceived, unless it was some monstrous, impious growth that was rending her, and would not soften or relax till it killed her. . . . She thought she was going to die! . . .

Presently, when all was quiet again in that tortured battleground of her body, she rose and pushed her hand through her bows of waved hair, and flung them back hideously, and crossed the room. Apologetically, almost, for fear of provoking a recurrence, she dragged herself downstairs and to the swing door at the head of the kitchen stairs. She now felt the need of a confidante. She must tell someone. The housemaid was too young. Vance was rather

motherly. Pushing open the door, she sat down on the top step, with her peignoir gathered round her, and, stretching out her legs, allowed them to hang over into the dark abyss of Vance's private apartments.

By the time she felt able to raise her voice and call Vance, she had decided not to confide in the cook. Vance would immediately think things," and she wanted no fuss. . . . It was not that, either; she only wished it was.

44

In response to her gentle summons the cook appeared at the foot of the stairs. Even seen in the dim penumbra of a London basement, a person unpreoccupied by her own symptoms would have realised at once that Vance was discomposed-agitated in some unusual way. Her cap was hanging by one hairpin, her floury arms were nervously rubbed one against the other. But Mrs. Mardell noticed nothing in other people to-day. She addressed her slowly and deliberately.

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'Vance, please, I want you to make me a nice cup of tea. At once, I shall not be able to eat any lunch. I think I'll wait till six, and have something with Mr. Mardell."

"Ain't you feeling well, ma'am?" asked the cook, spiritlessly. "No, not very-a little all overish. It will be nothing, only I don't quite feel like eating a solid meal."

46

"Nor I can't say I feel like cooking it!

Vance observed bitterly.

"I'm that upset! I've been across and asked."

"Asked what?" inquired Mrs. Mardell wearily.

'About the funeral that I saw with my own eyes leaving that house on Christmas Day.

buried on Christmas Day

It's not natural, I said, to go getting

Mrs. Mardell interposed, impatiently, "You don't mean to say you went and asked at the house if they'd had any one dead there? Really, Vance?"

"It was no use, ma'am, I had to know. And it's only a nursing home, not a private house, so I've done no harm. And "-the woman's voice grew low and hoarse-" nobody ain't died therenot yet-that's all!"

She put her apron to her face.

Good gracious, Vance! Tell me more about it!"

"Ma'am, they've only got one patient there-a lady. She was going on all right, but she had a relapse, this morning, just about half-past eleven, their cook said it was. She had had an operation three weeks ago, and no good, and it's got to be done all over again this afternoon at two o'clock, and they can't tell as it will be successful this time."

"Well, my good woman, don't you worry. Let's hope the lady will get over it. People do, you know. I feel so second-rate myself that I can't get up much sympathy with other people's aches and pains. Be quick and get the kettle on, or is it boiling already?"

"Yes, ma'am, you shall have it in a minute. Ma'am, you may not believe me, but I seen a proper funeral, and the hearse waiting, and the corpse carried out and down those steps . . . and the bearers with crape on their hats and so attentive, and one of them

was no bigger than master.

I saw him. coffin.

I thought of master the moment And she was a big woman, for she took a big

"You are settling that it's the woman who's lying ill there now who has got to die, eh? What's her name?"

"I asked, but my informant didn't know it, only that she was an

actress.

Mrs. Mardell gathered in her legs decisively.

Come, now, Vance, don't stand there gossiping and unhinging yourself with fancies-get me my cup of tea. I shall be all right, I expect, when once I have had something warm. Bring it to my room. I shall lie down a bit, I think.'

She rose to her feet, closed the swing door, dismissing Vance and her dreary vision, and wearily passed upstairs. Her day was spoilt. The pain did not seem to be going to recur, but the deadly feeling of uneasiness which had succeeded it certainly increased. Her legs were weak and could hardly carry her. People who have seen an apparition are said to feel just so. But, as she reflected,

it was Vance, not she, who had seen the ghost!

She paused half-way upstairs to look out of the window on the first landing, whence Vance declared she had watched the lugubrious tableau. Mrs. Mardell had never gone in for knowing her neighbours-it was wiser not or else she would have been aware of the industry that was carried on at number thirteen, a red-brick, sham artistic villa, just like her own house, like every other house in the street. She could only make it out by pressing her face against the window, and then she only saw it aslant, and red, through the vicious stained glass that occupied that particular pane. Eight steps led up to the front door of it, as eight steps led up to hers. Surely it was awkward for the incoming patients-many of them, presumably, too ill to walk? She wondered what sort of cases they took there? It would depend? .

Julia, she had heard, had grown very fat-at thirty? That pointed to something abnormal, in a youngish woman! . . . something that had to be removed, generally?

"Your tea, ma'am! said Vance suddenly at her elbow. “I thought I would bring it up to you myself."

Mrs. Mardell was a little ashamed that Vance should discover her staring out of the window at the scene of her cock-and-bull story. She coldly turned and bade the cook precede her to her bedroom with the tea. Vance accepted the rebuff meekly; she looked cowed and thoroughly upset, and as if no merely domestic trifle could affect her now, broken to tragic issues as she had been.

The tea, as Mrs. Mardell had expected, revived her, and enabled her to dress carefully, en deshabille, for a quiet afternoon indoors. She thought she would telephone for Miss Walton to come and sit with her a bit? She needed something or somebody to pick her up. Of course, there was Charlie Bligh, a nice boy whom both she and

Joe liked; she might telephone him to come and take her out to dine, as he often did? . . . But no, she wasn't looking Carlton form; it wouldn't be fair to Charlie to ask him to take out anything that wasn't gay and smart. Besides, it would be rather mean to leave Joe to eat his dinner all alone when she had not even said good morning to him! She had often left him for dinner, of course, and he had never thought of objecting-verbally, at least-but just now that he was so busy and overworked, she felt sure that he would like her there, sitting beside him, even though she could eat nothing. She saw herself delicately invalidish, in her soft draperies, picking at some grapes. . . . She felt mysteriously drawn to Joe, dear Joe, who was working for her now, who never attempted to control her social movements, who took what she gave him and was always as ready to flirt with her as if he were not married to her! She had managed Joe well! No, she wouldn't leave Joe to-night, but get Miss Walton, who would surely stay with her till Joe returned about half-past five, as usual.

Miss Walton, through the telephone, signified her willingness, and Mrs. Mardell made up her mind to take things easy. She was really unwell; she had eaten nothing since breakfast; she felt empty, disturbed, shaken, swelled and sore. She could not have got her exquisitely adjusted corsets on if she had tried, or endured the pressure of them round her body. A tea-gown was clearly indicated. She assumed one, and a little lace cap that went well with it, and lay down on the rose-coloured chintz sofa in the drawingroom, shaded by a soft standard lamp, breathing timorously, existing furtively, unnoticed, she hoped, by the brooding eagle of pain waiting to tear her.

She had brought her jewel-case downstairs with her, and idly toyed with her trinkets. There were three trays, lined with velvet and twinkling with precious stones. She took every piece in order, slowly, seriously, but all the while her fingers seemed to know that down at the bottom of the box lay their real objective, a thin, crumpled, tousled letter, folded small and turning up at the corners. Florence Mardell had received it a few days after her marriage, and although it was only a letter from a woman, had forborne to show it to her husband.

The letter was not actually malicious or even disagreeable, but it had dismayed her and shocked her. She had kept it in case Julia should ever choose to lay aside her extraordinary tolerance and become human again. She read it over now to remind her of what it contained; indeed, she had intended to do so ever since she first handled the box up in her bedroom, and the by-play with the jewellery was only a blind.

"Now it is all over, my strivings have not been in vain, and Joe passes from me to you. You must not mind my writing to you, Florence. I think that, on the whole, you will prefer to know what I feel, and that the woman you have supplanted is not your enemy.