y. Now she felt desperate, angry, sick, but like the scorpion that
ringed by fire can turn only on itself. What a hell life was, she told
herself. How it slipped away and left one aging, horribly alone! Love
was nothing, faith nothing--nothing, nothing!

A fine light of conviction, intensity, intention lit her eye for the
moment. "Very well, then," she said, coolly, tensely. "I know what
I'll do. I'll not live this way. I'll not live beyond to-night. I
want to die, anyhow, and I will."

It was by no means a cry, this last, but a calm statement. It should
prove her love. To Cowperwood it seemed unreal, bravado, a momentary
rage intended to frighten him. She turned and walked up the grand
staircase, which was near--a splendid piece of marble and bronze
fifteen feet wide, with marble nereids for newel-posts, and dancing
figures worked into the stone. She went into her room quite calmly and
took up a steel paper-cutter of dagger design--a knife with a handle of
bronze and a point of great sharpness. Coming out and going along the
balcony over the court of orchids, where Cowperwood still was seated,
she entered the sunrise room with its pool of water, its birds, its
benches, its vines. Locking the door, she sat down and then, suddenly
baring an arm, jabbed a vein--ripped it for inches--and sat there to
bleed. Now she would see whether she could die, whether he would let
her.

Uncertain, astonished, not able to believe that she could be so rash,
not believing that her feeling could be so great, Cowperwood still
remained where she had left him wondering. He had not been so greatly
moved--the tantrums of women were common--and yet-- Could she really be
contemplating death? How could she? How ridiculous! Life was so
strange, so mad. But this was Aileen who had just made this threat,
and she had gone up the stairs to carry it out, perhaps. Impossible!
How could it be? Yet back of all his doubts there was a kind of
sickening feeling, a dread. He recalled how she had assaulted Rita
Sohlberg.

He hurried up the steps now and into her room. She was not there. He
went quickly along the balcony, looking here and there, until he came
to the sunrise room. She must be there, for the door was shut. He
tried it--it was locked.

"Aileen," he called. "Aileen! Are you in there?" No answer. He
listened. Still no answer. "Aileen!" he repeated. "Are you in there?
What damned nonsense is this, anyhow?"

"George!"