*

In the little room alone, she saw that the long dark road must be
traversed again; the chains had fallen upon her anew--their former
wounds yet unhealed.... The old lies and acting; the old hateful
garment for the world to see; suffering beneath a smile. She must hear
the voice of Beth Truba lightly observing and answering, while
_she_--the heart of her--was deathly ill.

Her throat tightened; it seemed her breast must burst with old and new
agonies. Once more she had given her full faith. This was clear now.
She had been a weakling again, and tumultuously, in spite of an ugly
warning! Had she not called at Wordling's apartment with the poster?
Had she not heard the whispers, the overturned chair and scornfully
fathomed the delayed answering of the door?... And to think she had
almost succeeded in putting that rankling incident away, though he had
not been in New York a month. And the shame of it, the recent hours she
had spent, with this visionary thing; that _he_ was beyond mating with
a woman of flesh--beyond her best--a forerunner with glad tidings for
all women!... Forerunner, indeed, and twice caught in a second-rate
woman's net of beguilings! Twice caught, and how many times
uncaught?... And she had thought herself hard and sceptical in his
presence.

The old romance looked clean and fair compared to this--the old lover,
boyish and forgivable. He had not won by preaching.... Where was the
Shadowy Sister now?

There was no quarter for Beth. She was a modern product, a twentieth
century woman, an angry, solitary, world-trained woman, who could not
make a concession to imperfect manhood. This was the key to all her
agonies. She had asked manhood of mind, and could not accept less. The
awful part was that she must do over again all the hateful strategies,
all the concealing and worldliness--her body, mind and soul sorely
crippled from before. That she must thus use her womanhood, her
precious prime of strength. One experience had not hardened her enough.
With what corrosion of self-hatred did she turn upon herself that
moment!

Her intellect had faltered; the Shadowy Sister had betrayed; David
Cairns had been consummately stupid; Vina Nettleton was soft with
dreams, and not to be reckoned with in the world; Vina could tell her
woes, but she, Beth Truba, must not scream nor fall. She must face the
woman in the other room, sit across a lighted table for an hour, and
talk and laugh. Her heart cried out agains