ut my health. I
do not wish to see you, but as human life is uncertain I have given
instructions that you may be at once informed of the good news of my
death, if you outlive me."

Gloria's hand closed upon the sheet of paper, and she reeled forward and
sideways in the chair, as though she had received a stunning blow. She
heard heavy footsteps on the brick floor in the next room and with a
desperate effort at consciousness she hid the crumpled letter in her
bosom before the door opened. But the room swam with her as she grasped
the straw cradle and tried to steady herself.

In an agony of terror she heard the footsteps coming nearer and nearer,
then retreating again, then turning back towards her. She prayed to God
at that moment that Griggs might not open the door. To gain strength,
she forced herself to rise to her feet and stand upright, but with the
first step she took, she stumbled against the chest that contained
Annetta's belongings. The physical pain roused her. She drew breath more
freely, and listened. Griggs was moving about in the other room,
probably putting together some few things which he meant to take to Rome
with him that evening. It seemed an hour before she heard him go away,
and the echo of his footsteps came more and more faintly as he went down
the stairs. He evidently had not guessed that she was in the little room
which served as a nursery--the room which had once been Dalrymple's
laboratory.

She did not read the letter again, but she found a match and set fire to
it, and watched it as it burned to black, gossamer-like ashes on the
brick floor. It was long before she had the courage to go down and face
Griggs and say that she was ready for the daily walk together before the
midday meal. And all that day she went about dreamily, scarcely knowing
what she did or said, though she was sure that she did not fail in
acting her part, for the habit was so strong that the acting was
natural to her, except when something waked her to herself too suddenly.

He went away at last in the evening, and she was free to do what she
pleased with herself, to close the deadly wound she had received, if
that were possible, to forget it even for an hour, if she could.

But she could not. She felt that it was her death-wound, for it had
killed a hope which she had tended and fostered into an inner life for
herself. She felt that her husband hated her, as she hated Paul Griggs.

She was impelled to fall upon her