een startled awake beside her, and as if in fear he put out his hand
toward her.

"We have been sleeping," he said, "no, we can't do that, for if we do
all sorts of things will come back, and above all the morning will
come--that cursed light, how that creeps up on us." They huddled
together shivering. "It ought never to be day again, we ought to die
now, oughtn't we?--in a lightning flash: suddenly a powerful blue
radiance and then again this lovely warm darkness."

Suddenly the carriage stopped. Boris let down the window and stuck out
his head. Through the falling streams of rain a yellow light blinked; a
dog barked furiously. "What is up?" cried Boris. Then he impatiently
opened the carriage door and jumped out. Billy heard him talking
excitedly; a growling male voice answered him, then another voice
interposed, high and strident, with the amused ring of social
intercourse, as if a gentleman were laughing at his own joke in the
midst of a quadrille. Billy, left alone, was frightened, afraid of the
darkness, of the voices outside, of what would happen and what she had
done--the simple, painful fear of the little girl with a bad
conscience. Boris opened the carriage door again. "Come," said he, "we
must get out, this fellow refuses to drive farther; they say the road
is impossible, a bridge is smashed, and I don't know what all." He
helped Billy out of the carriage and led her through the puddles of
water up some rickety steps.

"Careful, everything is rotten here." Again the high, strident voice
was speaking.

They entered a hall which smelled of smoke and onions, and thence a
living-room in which they were met by heavy, over-heated air. It was
light here, for two candles were burning on a table with a white cloth,
and at one side over a small bar hung a smoking kerosene lamp. Billy
blinked blindly at the light; the room seemed to be full of people.
Some one took off her cloak, and the strident voice said, "Your eyes
must first become accustomed to the splendor of Wolf's salon,
Countess."

"Sit down, sit down," cried Boris, and thrust her across to the great
black sofa which stood before the covered table.

Now Billy began to distinguish the figures in the room. There was a
tall Jew with a black beard and flaming brown eyes; he was smiling
quite sweetly. Children in their shirts crowded into the half-open
door, and very large eyes, dark as balls of onyx, looked fixedly over
at Billy from under tangled black ha