e Falls, with which the hotel is perpetually filled, seemed
to redouble.

Three large windows opposite to her were, in fact, wide open; the room,
with its lights dimmed by fog, seemed hung above the abyss.

An invalid couch stood in front of the window, and upon it lay a pale,
emaciated woman, breathing quickly and feebly. At the sound of the
closing door, Madeleine Verrier turned.

"Oh, Daphne, I was afraid you had gone out! You do such wild things!"

Daphne Barnes came to the side of the couch.

"Darling, I only went to speak to your maid for a moment. Are you sure
you can stand all this damp fog?"

As she spoke Daphne took up a fur cloak lying on a chair near, and
wrapped herself warmly in it.

"I can't breathe when they shut the windows. But it is too cold for
you."

"Oh, I'm all right in this." Daphne drew the cloak round her.

Inwardly she said to herself, "Shall I tell her the Boysons are here?
Yes, I must. She is sure to hear it in some way."

So, stooping over the couch, she said:

"Do you know who arrived this evening? The Alfred Boysons. I saw them in
the hall just now."

"They're on their honeymoon?" asked the faint voice, after a just
perceptible pause.

Daphne assented. "She seems a pretty little thing."

Madeleine Verrier opened her tired eyes to look at Daphne. Mrs.
Floyd--as Daphne now called herself--was dressed in deep black. The
costly gown revealed a figure which had recently become substantial, and
the face on which the electric light shone had nothing left in it of the
girl, though Daphne Floyd was not yet thirty. The initial beauty of
complexion was gone; so was the fleeting prettiness of youth. The eyes
were as splendid as ever, but combined with the increased paleness of
the cheeks, the greater prominence and determination of the mouth, and a
certain austerity in the dressing of the hair, which was now firmly
drawn back from the temples round which it used to curl, and worn high,
_a la Marquise_, they expressed a personality--a formidable
personality--in which self-will was no longer graceful, and power no
longer magnetic. Madeleine Verrier gazed at her friend in silence. She
was very grateful to Daphne, often very dependent on her. But there were
moments when she shrank from her, when she would gladly never have seen
her again. Daphne was still erect, self-confident, militant; whereas
Madeleine knew herself vanquished--vanquished both in body and soul.

Certain inner miserie