loomed up gray through the falling snow; the train roared over the
Harlem, halted at 125th Street, rolled on into the black tunnel, faster,
faster, slower, then more slowly, and stopped. All sounds ceased at the
same moment; silence surrounded her, dreary as the ominous silence
within.

Dunn met her with a brougham; Fifth Avenue was slippery with filthy,
melting slush; yet, somehow, into her mind came the memory of her return
from her first opera--the white avenue at midnight, the carriage, lamps
lighted, speeding through the driving snow. Yesterday, the quiet,
untainted whiteness of childhood; to-day, trouble and stress and stained
snow melting into mud--so far behind her lay innocence and peace on the
long road she had travelled! So far had she already journeyed--toward
what?

She pressed her lips more tightly together and buried her chin in her
sable muff. Beside her, her maid sat shivering and stifling yawn after
yawn and thinking of dinner and creature comforts, and of Dunn, the
footman, whom she did ardently admire.

The big red brick house among its naked trees seemed sad and deserted as
the brougham flashed into the drive and stopped, the horses stamping and
pawing the frozen gravel. Geraldine had never before been away from home
so long, and now as she descended from the carriage and looked vaguely
about her it seemed as though she had, somehow, become very, very young
again--that it was her child-self that entered under the porte-cochere
after the prescribed drive that always ended outdoor exercise in the
early winter evenings; and she half expected to see old Howker in the
hall, and Margaret trotting up to undo her furs and leggings--half
expected to hear Kathleen's gay greeting, to see her on the stairs, so
young, so sweetly radiant, her arms outstretched in welcome to her
children who had been away scarcely a full hour.

"I'd like to have a fire in my bedroom and in the upper library," she
said to Hilda, who had smilingly opened the door for her. "I'll dine in
the upper library, too. When Mr. Mallett arrives, you need not come up
to announce him. Ask him to find me in the library."

To Mrs. Farren she said: "Nobody need sit up. When Mr. Mallett leaves, I
will put the chains on and bolt everything."

She was destined not to keep this promise.

* * * * *

Bathed, her hair brushed and dressed, she suffered her maid to hook her
into a gown which she could put off again un