gh the dim, impenetrable gloom of Sally's wide-eyed
misery, her own spirits never cast down by the seeming impossibility
of the task, her resources never exhausted by the persistent drain
that was made upon them. Here was the strength of her masculinity
united with the patient endurance of the woman in her heart. No man,
of his own nature alone, could have won through the sweating labour
of those three weeks--few women either. But that very combination
of sex, that very duality of her nature which, as a woman, made her
unlovable to any man, and endeared her so closely to Sally's life,
had succeeded where a thousand others of her sex would have failed.

She left Sally, it is true, a woman with a wounded heart to nurse,
an aching misery to bear; but she left her with a sanity of purpose
which can take up the tangled threads and, however blinded be the
eyes with weeping, with fingers feeling their way, can unravel the
knotted mass that lies before her.

So she slowly returned to the common factors of existence, and in
six weeks from the time of Traill's departure, was ready to smile
at any moment to the humour of Janet's dry criticisms of life. But
to move from her rooms, to disassociate herself from the past with
every sorrow and every joy that it contained, was more than she could
bring herself to do. Through all Janet's persuasions, Sally remained
obdurate.

"I've only got the rooms for three years," she replied finally. "I
can't think of it as really past until that time's gone by; Then,
I will. I'll go anywhere you like. I'll come and share your studio
with you."

They entered into a formal agreement on that and, knowing the Romance
in Sally's nature, Janet pursued her quest of success on the other
point no further.

But circumstance, with an arm stronger than Janet could ever wield,
succeeded where she had failed.

One evening, as Sally was preparing to go out alone to dinner, she
heard footsteps mounting the stairs to her floor. On the moment, her
heart leapt, beating to her throat. Her hands, raising the hat to
her head, so trembled that she had to put it back upon the
dressing-table. A cold dew damped her forehead. She put her hand up
and found it wet. Then the knock fell and, shaking in every limb,
she set her lips and walked as firmly as she could to the door. There
she stopped, taking a deep breath. Then she swung it open.

It was Devenish.

He took off his hat and held a hand out to her. She accepte