rbid fancy, came steaming
about her, subtle, penetrating, thick, and hateful, like the pressure of
a cloud out of which disease is shot.

Such it seemed to her, till she could have shrieked; but only a few fresh
tears started down her cheeks, and she lay enduring it.

Dead silence and stillness hung over the dinner-service, when the outer
door below was opened, and a light foot sprang up the stairs.

There entered a young gentleman in evening dress, with a loose black
wrapper drooping from his shoulders.

He looked on the table, and then glancing at the sofa, said:

"Oh, there she is!" and went to the window and whistled.

After a minute of great patience, he turned his face back to the room
again, and commenced tapping his foot on the carpet.

"Well?" he said, finding these indications of exemplary self-command
unheeded. His voice was equally powerless to provoke a sign of animation.
He now displaced his hat, and said, "Dahlia!"

She did not move.

"I am here to very little purpose, then," he remarked.

A guttering fall of her bosom was perceptible.

"For heaven's sake, take away that handkerchief, my good child! Why have
you let your dinner get cold? Here," he lifted a cover; "here's
roast-beef. You like it--why don't you eat it? That's only a small piece
of the general inconsistency, I know. And why haven't they put champagne
on the table for you? You lose your spirits without it. If you took it
when these moody fits came on--but there's no advising a woman to do
anything for her own good. Dahlia, will you do me the favour to speak two
or three words with me before I go? I would have dined here, but I have a
man to meet me at the Club. Of what mortal service is it shamming the
insensible? You've produced the required effect, I am as uncomfortable as
I need be. Absolutely!

"Well," seeing that words were of no avail, he summed up expostulation
and reproach in this sigh of resigned philosophy: "I am going. Let me
see--I have my Temple keys?--yes! I am afraid that even when you are
inclined to be gracious and look at me, I shall not, be visible to you
for some days. I start for Lord Elling's to-morrow morning at five. I
meet my father there by appointment. I'm afraid we shall have to stay
over Christmas. Good-bye." He paused. "Good-bye, my dear."

Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, "By the way, do you want
anything? Money?--do you happen to want any money? I will send a blank
cheque tomorrow. I