world. Wait until your hour of jealousy comes--wait until you find
that your hair is turning gray. The most tragical moment in a woman's
life is when she finds that the gray hairs will not be kept back. That
is the time when she thinks of Heaven most seriously. I have not yet
found a single gray hair in my head, but I have suffered all else; and
I have been an astonishment to myself--as I have been to you more than
once before now, and as I certainly am to you at the present moment."

She had spoken at first with quivering lips, her fingers interlaced, her
eyes flashing. She had sprung from her seat and had begun to pace the
room just as she had paced Phyllis' drawing room on that night when she
had missed the performance of "Romeo and Juliet," but she ended with
a laugh, which was meant to make a mock of the seriousness of her
impassioned words, but which only had the effect of emphasizing her
passion in the ears of the girl.

While she was still lying back, laughing, in the chair into which she
had thrown herself once more, Phyllis went to her and knelt at her feet,
taking her hands just as Herbert had taken her hands in the evening when
he had knelt at her feet in her own house after the little dinner at Mr.
Ayrton's.

"Ella, Ella," she whispered, "I also am a woman. Oh, my dearest! I think
that I can understand something of your heart. I know a little.
Oh, Ella, Ella! I would do anything in the world to help
you--anything--anything!"

"Would you?" cried the woman. "Would you do anything? Would you give up
Herbert Courtland in order to help me?"

She had grasped Phyllis by the wrists and had bent her own head forward
until her face was within an inch of Phyllis'. Their breaths mingled.
Their faces were too close to admit of either of them seeing the
expression that was in the eyes of the other.

"Dearest Ella, you will not break my heart!" said the girl piteously.

"Will you give him up for your love of me?" the woman cried again, and
Phyllis felt her hands tighten upon her wrists.

"I will forget that you have said such words," said the girl.

The woman flung away her hands after retaining them for a few moments in
silence, and then throwing herself back in her chair, laughed loud and
long.

Phyllis rose to her feet.

"You poor dear!" cried Ella. "It was a shame--a shame to play such a
jest upon you! But I felt in a tragic mood, and the line between comedy
and tragedy is a very fine one. Forgive my lit