u needn't. Oh, the hundreds and thousands I've had to tell! The
dreary, uphill work! But now I'm on the hill, the beautiful hill in the
sunshine where my husband lives. And I'm going to stay there if I have
to wade in lies."

Mary shivered a little at the words and the look in Marie's eyes as they
stared behind the spider web veil. But she tried not to show that she
was shocked. She felt she would give her hand to be cut off rather than
hurt this miserable girl who had sinned and suffered, and now stood
desperately at bay.

"Try to be happy; try to trust me," she said. "We used to be such
friends."

"That was my only hope when I found that Vanno was engaged to you, and
that we should have to meet," Marie confessed. "I hated to come, but I
had to brave it out. And I thought it just possible you mightn't
recognize me, after all these years." She pushed up her veil nervously.
"Haven't I changed? Do say I've changed!"

"Your hair looks lighter. There's more red in it, surely," Mary
reflected aloud. "It used to be a dark brown. Now it's almost auburn."

"I bleach it. I began to do that when I first thought of trying to--get
back to things. I wanted to make myself different, so that if any of the
people who saw me when I--was down, came across me again, they mightn't
be sure it was I--they might think it was just a resemblance
to--another woman. I took the name of Gaunt instead of Grant, because it
was so nearly the same, it might seem to have been a very simple
mistake, if any complication came. And I went to live far away from
every one I'd ever known. I chose Dresden. I can hardly tell why, except
that I'd never been there, and I wanted to paint. I stayed at first in a
pension kept by an artist's wife. The artist helped me, and I did very
well with my work. That's what saved me. If I hadn't had that talent,
there would have been only one of two things for me to do: kill myself,
or--worse."

"Let's not think of it, since it's all over," said Mary, gently. She
took Marie by the hand again, and made her sit down on Rose Winter's
chintz covered sofa. Then she sat beside her friend and almost timidly
slid an arm round her waist.

"All over!" the Princess echoed, in a voice so weary and old, so unlike
the bright sleigh-bell gayety Angelo knew, that he would hardly have
recognized his wife. "That's the horrible part--that's the punishment:
never to know whether it's 'all over,' or whether at any minute, just as
one begin