bed. She had been scarcely aware of her maid's help in
undressing. The ordinary life was, as it were, suspended. Two scenes
floated alternately before her--one the creation of memory, the other of
imagination; and the second was, if possible, the more vivid, the more
real of the two. Now she saw herself in Lady Henry's drawing-room; Sir
Wilfrid Bury and a white-haired general were beside her. The door opened
and Warkworth entered--young, handsome, soldierly, with that boyish,
conquering air which some admired and others disliked. His eyes met
hers, and a glow of happiness passed through her.

Then, at a stroke, the London drawing-room melted away. She was in a low
bell-tent. The sun burned through its sides; the air was stifling. She
stood with two other men and the doctor beside the low camp-bed; her
heart was wrung by every movement, every sound; she heard the clicking
of the fan in the doctor's hands, she saw the flies on the poor,
damp brow.

And still she had no tears. Only, existence seemed to have ended in a
gulf of horror, where youth and courage, repentance and high resolve,
love and pleasure were all buried and annihilated together.

That poor girl up-stairs! It had not been possible to take her home. She
was there with nurse and doctor, her mother hanging upon every difficult
breath. The attack of diphtheria had left a weakened heart and nervous
system; the shock had been cruel, and the doctor could promise nothing
for the future.

"Mother--mother!... _Dead!_"

The cry echoed in Julie's ears. It seemed to fill the old, low-ceiled
room in which she lay. Her fancy, preternaturally alive, heard it thrown
back from the mountains outside--returned to her in wailing from the
infinite depths of the lake. She was conscious of the vast forms and
abysses of nature, there in the darkness, beyond the walls of her room,
as something hostile, implacable....

And while he lay there dead, under the tropical sand, she was still
living and breathing here, in this old Swiss inn--Jacob Delafield's
wife, at least in name.

There was a knock at her door. At first she did not answer it. It seemed
to be only one of the many dream sounds which tormented her nerves. Then
it was repeated. Mechanically she said "Come in."

The door opened, and Delafield, carrying a light, which he shaded with
his hand, stood on the threshold.

"May I come and talk to you?" he said, in a low voice. "I know you are
not sleeping."

It was the