ders. Here and there a surviving blossom of antirrhinum swaggered
among its withered brethren as if to maintain the illusion of summer. A
partridge or two whirred across the path from copse to meadow. The
gentle sadness of the autumn day had moved her to discourse on the
mutability of mundane things. Hence, by chain of association, I suppose,
her sudden remark.

"I don't want to go," she replied. "I should like to stay in the dreamy
peace of Northlands for ever. But I have been a pet for such a long
time--for years, and I've shown myself to be such a bad pet--biting the
hand that fed me."

I bade her not talk foolishly. She moved her small shoulder.

"It's true. While the three of you--you and Barbara and Jaffery--were
doing for me what has never been done for another human being, I was all
the time snarling and snapping. I can't make out how you can bear the
sight of me." She clenched her hands and straightened her arms down
tense. "The thought of it scorches me," she cried suddenly.

"Whatever you did, dear," said I, "was so natural; and we understood it
all. How could we blame you?"

We had, in fact, blamed her on many occasions, not being as gods to whom
human hearts are open books; but this was not the occasion on which to
tell her so. I don't like the devil being called the father of lies. I
am convinced that the discoverer of mendacity was a warm-hearted
philanthropist, who has never received due credit, and that the devil
having seized hold of his discovery perverted it to his own diabolical
uses. It is the sort of plagiaristic thing that devils, whether they
promote ancient Gehennas or modern companies, have been doing since the
world began.

"That doesn't make it any the easier to me," said Doria. "The horrible
things I said and did--the ghastliness of it--"

"My dear girl," I interrupted, as kindly as I could. "Don't let this
mere fringe of tragedy worry you."

She laughed shrilly, with a set, white face; which is the most
unmirthful kind of laugh you can imagine.

"Don't you know that it's the fringe that is the maddening irritation?
The big central thing numbs and stupefies, when it doesn't kill. And for
some reason"--she threw out her little gloved hands--"the big thing
hasn't killed me--it has paralysed me. The springs of feeling"--she
clutched her bosom--"are dried up. My heart is withered and dead. I
can't explain. For all the dead things I'm not responsible. I've gone
through Hell the last t