e of times, then threw herself down upon the
couch, her chin supported on her palm.

As she crossed the room, however, her eye had been caught by an opened
note from Mrs. Cressler, received the day before, and apprising her of
the date of the funeral. At the sight, all the tragedy leaped up again
in her mind and recollection, and in fancy she stood again in the back
parlour of the Cressler home; her fingers pressed over her mouth to
shut back the cries, horror and the terror of sudden death rending her
heart, shaking the brain itself. Again and again since that dreadful
moment had the fear come back, mingled with grief, with compassion, and
the bitter sorrow of a kind friend gone forever from her side. And
then, her resolution girding itself, her will power at fullest stretch,
she had put the tragedy from her. Other and--for her--more momentous
events impended. Everything in life, even death itself, must stand
aside while her love was put to the test. Life and death were little
things. Love only existed; let her husband's career fail; what did it
import so only love stood the strain and issued from the struggle
triumphant? And now, as she lay upon her couch, she crushed down all
compunction for the pitiful calamity whose last scene she had
discovered, her thoughts once more upon her husband and herself. Had
the shock of that spectacle in the Cresslers' house, and the wearing
suspense in which she had lived of late, so torn and disordered the
delicate feminine nerves that a kind of hysteria animated and directed
her impulses, her words, and actions? Laura did not know. She only knew
that the day was going and that her husband neither came near her nor
sent her word.

Even if he had been very busy, this was her birthday,--though he had
lost millions! Could he not have sent even the foolishest little
present to her, even a line--three words on a scrap of paper? But she
checked herself. The day was not over yet; perhaps, perhaps he would
remember her, after all, before the afternoon was over. He was managing
a little surprise for her, no doubt. He knew what day this was. After
their talk that Sunday in his smoking-room he would not forget. And,
besides, it was the evening that he had promised should be hers. "If he
loved her," she had said, he would give that evening to her. Never,
never would Curtis fail her when conjured by that spell.

Laura had planned a little dinner for that night. It was to be served
at eight. Pag