Messrs. CHAPMAN & HALL'S

CHAPTER IV

When she had left her trunks at the rooms in Regent Street, Sally drove straight to Janet's studio, situated in the environments of Shepherd's Bush.

In the apron of the art-student, her hands unwashed, her hair dishevelled and untidy, she opened the door to Sally's summons.

"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "Why aren't you at Cailsham?"

"I came up this afternoon."

Sally entered the room, crossed to the drawing-board, where the design for a figure of lace was slowly materializing in white paint upon brown paper under Janet's hand. With an apparent concentration of interest she gazed into that. Then Janet closed the door.

"When are you going back?" she asked, climbing slowly to her stool.

"I'm not going back."

Janet grunted, dipped her brush into the porcelain palette and painted in a line that meant nothing. Then she laid down the brush and looked up.

"I've been expecting this." she said. "Why aren't you going back?"

"Mother doesn't want me—I don't want to go."

"Does your mother know?"

"She knows nothing."

Janet stared. "Then what?" she asked abruptly.

Sally dropped into a chair. "Mrs. Priestly—Maurie's mother—is being divorced. They found it out to-day in the papers. Maurie's not her husband's child. They packed him off at once; weren't even going to send any one with him. I said I'd go. Mother said if I did, she'd never have me in the house again. That didn't make any difference to me. I was going in any case."

"Why?"

"A Mr. Grierson down there, asked me to marry him. I couldn't consent without telling him."

"You told him?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Not very much. Just that at first he couldn't believe it. Then, when he saw I was telling the truth, he said nothing."

"Why did you tell him?"

"Because—it was only right—it was only fair."

Janet gazed at her, eyes softened with a gentle admiration.

"Do you remember what you told me about your father?" she said.

"Yes, why?"

"I expect you must he very like him. Only, instead of being a slave to a Church, you're a slave to your heart. You're just as much the type of woman whom the world wants and treats damned badly—I don't care if I do swear—as he was the type of man whom an institution like the Church of England requires—and treats damned badly too. I guess you're exactly like your father."

"That's what mother said; but she didn't put it in that way. She said I was a fool—like father was."

"Hum!" said Janet, and picked up her brush again. For a time she worked in silence, eyes strained to the fine lines, breath held in to steady her hand, then liberated with a sudden grunting sound.

"Would you have married the man?" she asked presently.

"Yes."

Janet painted in a few more lines. "Do you mean to say you didn't realize that he wouldn't be able to stand what you told him?"

"I expected it."

"Then why—?"

"Simply it wasn't fair. You couldn't make it fair, however much you tried. You'd have done the same yourself. I think I could have been happy with him if he knew. I'd have worshipped his children. But I should have been miserable if he didn't know."

"So you've learnt at last what I told you?" said Janet. "Did Traill never wish you to have a child?"

"No; I don't think so. He never said anything about it."

"And you?"

"No; I don't think I did. I was too happy."

Janet bent down over the drawing-board. "You would now?" she said without looking up. In the delicate operation of painting in the petals of a rose, she did not realize that her question had not been answered. A minute slipped by and with breath strained in the holding of it, she repeated her question. "You would now?"

When the rose had bloomed under her brush, still receiving no reply, she sat upright and looked round. Sally's body was bent forward, her elbows were on her knees, her face in her hands.

Janet clambered down from her stool. "Crying?" she asked.

Sally gazed up at her with tearless eyes. "No; I can't cry now. I try to. I can't."

"God! What a difference it 'ud make to you!" said Janet.

"What would?"

"If you had a kiddy. What was this little Maurie like? He sounded sweet in your letters. Why don't you see as much of him as you can? I'm sure he's fond of you. Isn't he?"

"Yes—in his way—in his dear little way. But you don't want fondness from children."

"What do you want, then?"

"Love. If you want anything at all. There were some of the little boys down at Cailsham who were loathsome: horrid little wretches, who'd put out their tongues at you."

"Sons of gentlemen," said Janet.

"One of them spat at me once when I was giving him a music lesson. You couldn't want anything from them. But I could almost have believed that Maurie was mine."

"Then why don't you go and see him? Take care of him for Mrs. Priestly till the case is over. He's bound to be in the way. When will it be over?"

"The case?"

"Yes."

"I don't know."

"Is she likely to win?"

"I'm afraid not, and I don't believe she minds as long as she's got Maurie."

"What counsel has she?"

"Oh, I don't know. I didn't read the paper."

"Well, why don't you go and take care of him till it's over?"

"I don't believe she'd like me to."

"Why on earth not? Here, let me get at that stove. We're going to have some tea. But why on earth not?"

"I know she was jealous. Maurie used to write her lots of letters about me. She was afraid he was getting to love me. I could see that this afternoon. I could see it so plainly that I told her. I admitted that I'd tried to get him to love me and failed."

"You did try?"

"Yes; I suppose it was about the meanest thing I've ever done."

Janet laid down the kettle silently on the stove, then came and sat on the arm of Sally's chair. One hand she laid on her shoulder, with the other she raised her face.

"I haven't appreciated you sufficiently, Sally," she said in a toneless voice. "You're not the sort that gets appreciation. But, my God! I think you're wonderful. Do I keep saying 'God' too much, d'you think?"

CHAPTER V

That night Sally sat in her old rooms once more and wrote a letter to Traill. The return to them had for one moment surged back in a rushing flood of memories; but it did not overwhelm her. She threw herself into no quagmire of despair. Her eyes were tearless. All her actions were such as those of a person dazed with sleep. One hope she had in her heart which animated her, just as the hope of ultimate rest will give sluggish life to the person whose eyes are heavy with fatigue.

Towards the realization of that hope, she seated herself at her desk and wrote to Traill.

"DEARJACK,

"Will you come and see me to-morrow afternoon at about half-past four? I will give you some tea. I want to speak to you. Please do not think that I am going to begin to pester you with unwelcome attentions. My silence over these two or three months should convince you that I would not worry you like that for anything.

"Hoping that I shall see you,"Yours sincerely,"SALLYBISHOP."

When she had posted it, she went to bed and slept fitfully till morning. There was no letter waiting her from Traill, but an envelope addressed with a scrawled, uneven writing lay in the box. She tore it eagerly open, her heart beating exultantly.

"DEARSALLY," it read,

"Mummy has gone out I am to write to you I am to say good bi proply I am very fond of you but I doant luv you Mummy ses you have been very kind I wode luv you very much if you was my mummy but mummy ses she is she is I am afrade this is not spellt rite but I have got a very bad pen.

"Yours affagintly,"MAURIE."

If the tears could have come then; but she laid the letter down on the table, and her eyes were aching and dry. The quaintness of the spelling, the almost complete absence of punctuation. That queer little repetition, of words—"she is she is"—none of these things moved her, even to smile. Maurie had said good-bye properly. That, and that he was only just fond of her, was all that reached her understanding. Had the letter been from a lover, dashing all her hopes into fragments, she could not have read it more seriously. But one prospect was left her. She never took her eyes from that. The fact that Traill had not written did not convey to her mind any fear that he would not come. She knew that he would not needlessly lead her to expect him and disappoint her at the last.

At four o'clock she had the table laid for tea. The dainty china that she had bought with him when abroad was brought out. The kettle was beginning to sing on the gas stove in the grate. When everything was ready, she tried to sit quietly in a chair, but her eyes kept wandering to the little Sèvres clock. Again and again she rose to her feet, looking out of her window into the street below.

At last footsteps echoed up the stairs. She caught her breath, and a sound broke in her throat. They came nearer, and she trembled; her hand shook; her whole body was chilled with searching cold. She had not seen him for three months—more. Now she began to think that she could not bear it. Then the knock fell on the door. A cry was on her lips. She forced it back, turned, holding as naturally as possible to the mantelpiece, and said—

"Come in."

He entered. He closed the door after him. Then she looked around.

The situation was as strained, as tautened, as is the gut of a snapping fiddle-string. Every sound seemed to vibrate in itself. For an instant he stood still, coming forward at last, hand outstretched to relieve the tension.

"Well, how are you, Sally?" he asked.

The random speech, jerked out—any words to break the silence. Even he felt it beating on his brain.

She shook hands with him. For the brief moment he touched her cold fingers in the grip of his; then she withdrew them.

"Let me take your hat," she said.

He gave it her. Watched her as she crossed the room to lay it on the chintz-covered settee, turned then to the fireplace, biting a nail between his teeth.

"Do you know the kettle's boiling?" he forced himself to say.

"Yes; I'm just going to make tea. You'll have some tea?"

"Oh, rather. You promised that."

He looked up with his old jerk of the head, courting the smile to her lips. She had no smile to give, and a shrug half tossed his shoulders.

"Are you comfortable here?" he asked, as she poured out the boiling water.

"Oh yes. Very."

"God!" he said casually within himself, feeling the weight of the strain. Then he struggled for it once more.

"I'm dining with Devenish this evening," he said lightly. "You remember Devenish, don't you?"

"Oh yes—I remember him. He came up to see me here a few weeks ago."

"Did he? He's a gay dog," he said lightly. "Do you like him?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Oh, then you don't. And haven't you seen him since?"

"No; I've been away."

"Away?"

"Yes; down at Cailsham—staying with my mother."

"Oh, very nice, I should think. I'm glad you're moving about a bit. I was rather afraid, you know, that you'd hang about in town all through the summer, and that 'ud be bound to knock you up."

She handed him his cup of tea. "Why were you afraid?" she asked.

"Why? Do you think I'd be glad if you were knocked up?"

He looked up at her, with raised eyebrows, not understanding.

"I don't suppose you'd be sorry, would you?"

She said it gently—no strain of bitterness. The emotion which had swept her at first was passed now. All her mind concentrated to the one end.

"Of course I should," he replied. "Of course I should be sorry. Do you paint me in your mind the little boy dropped in and out of a love affair?"

"Oh no."

"Then why say that? Of course I should be sorry. Because you and I couldn't fit things properly together—"

"Is that how it seems to you now?" she interrupted.

"Well, could we? Is it any good going over it all again? Did you ever imagine me to be the type of man who would consent to being followed, as you followed me that night? I can't suppose you did; otherwise, would you have tried to hide it from me? But I don't lose any friendly regard for you because of that."

"You don't object to being here, then?" she asked eagerly.

"No; certainly not! Why should I?"

"Would you come again if nothing of that were ever mentioned any more between us—would you come again?"

"Yes, willingly. Now that I see that your intention is to be perfectly reasonable, I would—willingly. Why not? I don't see why we should be enemies."

"No," said Sally quickly; "neither do I—neither do I."

He drank through his tea. One mouthful—they were such tiny cups; but that is the way a man takes his entertainment.

"Have a good time down at Cailsham?" he asked presently.

He felt more at his ease. She was taking it well—so much better than he expected.

"Oh, not very good. I have told you, haven't I, that I don't get on very well with my people."

"Of course; yes. Isn't that rather a pity?"

Possibly conscience was plying its spurs. There was some suggestion underlying the quietness of her manner which he found to bring a sense of uneasiness. He would have preferred that she had got on well at Cailsham. He would rather that she had taken a fancy to Devenish. But she was reasonable—extremely reasonable. He had nothing to grumble at. Yet he could not get away from the sense of something that made each word they said drag slowly, unnaturally into utterance. He tried to shake it from him.

"Well, what is it you've got to speak to me about?" he asked in a fresh tone of voice, as if with a jerk they were starting again over lighter ground.

"Won't you wait till you've finished your tea?" she asked.

"I have finished."

"No more?"

"No, thanks. Do you mind my smoking?"

She lit a match for him in answer—held it out, waiting while he extracted the cigarette from his case.

"Now tell me," he said, when she had thrown the match away.

She gazed for a moment in the grate, at the kettle breathing contentedly on the gas stove.

"I'm lonely," she said, turning to his eyes.

He met her gaze as well as he could. He knew she was lonely. Conscience—conscience that no strength of will could override—had often pricked him on that point. But what was a conscience? He would not have believed himself guilty of the weakness at any other time. He gave no rein to it.

"But you'll get over that," he said. "You'll get over that."

"I don't think so."

"But why not? Perhaps you give way to it. Find yourself plenty to do. Keep yourself moving. You won't be lonely then."

"I know. But do what?"

"Well," the question faced him. He had to answer it. "Well, you're fond of reading, aren't you?"

"Reading!"

"And you've got these rooms to keep straight. A good many women if they thought they'd got to tidy up two rooms every day would grumble at the amount of labour, because it took up so much of their time."

"Yes; but they'd do it."

"Probably they'd have to."

"And then they wouldn't be lonely."

"Quite so. Isn't that what I say?"

"Yes; but don't you forget one thing?"

"What's that?"

"They'd be doing it for some one else. They wouldn't be doing it for themselves. And don't you think they get the impetus to do it from that?"

She leant forward—no sign of triumph in her face—and watched his eyes. She knew he could not reply to that. He knew it too. He pulled strenuously at his cigarette, then flung it into the empty fireplace.

"Then what is your point?" he asked firmly. He beat around no bushes. That was not the nature of him. This was a difficulty. He faced it. This was the scene she had deftly been leading up to. Let her have it out and he would tell her straight, once and for all. "What is your point?" he repeated. "You want me to come back—go through the same business all over again?"

"No!"

Now he was puzzled. His eyes frowned straight into hers.

"Then what? Come along, Sally, out with it."

She turned her head away. He heard the sound in her throat as she began to form the words. But she could not say it. Then her hands covered her face, for a moment stayed there; at last she took them away and met the beating gaze of his eyes.

"If I had a child," she said quickly.

His forehead creased, line upon line. He took a deep breath and leant back in his chair.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"If I had a child," she repeated, "I shouldn't be lonely then. I should have some one to do all these things for then. I should have something to live for."

Traill stood abruptly to his feet. "You're—you're crazy!" he exclaimed.

She stood beside him. Her hand stretched out nervously, touching his coat.

"No, no, I'm not. I mean it. Can't you see what it would mean to me, here alone, night after night, night after night, no one, absolutely no one but myself."

He studied her in amazement. "If it were any other woman than you," he said suddenly, "I should think this was a put-up job to compromise me—a cunning, put-up job. But you! It's amazing! I don't understand it. Why, you'd brand yourself to the whole world. It'd be a mill stone round your neck, not a child."

"Don't you think I'm branded plainly enough already? What do you think a man like Devenish thinks of me?"

"Oh, Devenish be damned! There are other men than Devenish in the world. Men who know nothing; men who'd be ready to marry you."

"Yes, I found one—one who thought me everything—everything till I told him."

"You told him?"

"Yes."

"In the name of God, what for? You must be crazy. What the deuce did you want to tell him for?"

"It was the only fair thing to do," she said quietly.

"Fair? Rot! That's chucking your chances away. That's playing the fool! What's he got to do with your life before you met him?" This was flinging the blame at him.

"Would you rather that the woman you were going to marry kept silent, risked your not finding out afterwards? Would you think she'd treated you fairly if she said nothing, and you were to discover it when it was too late?"

He had no answer. He tried to make one. His lips parted; then, in silence, he turned away.

"It might have made your mind easier," she said quietly, without tone of blame, "but it wouldn't have been fair."

He twisted back. "There's no need for my mind to be made easier," he said hardly. "I've treated you fairly from the beginning to the end. I warned you in the first instance; I told you to have no truck with me. I sent you away. You came back. I didn't ask you to come back."

Janet's words flashed across Sally's memory; the words she had said when they were talking over the bangle: "I don't care what you say about that letter, the letter's nothing! It's the gift that's the thing. That's the song of sex if you like, and whether you return it, or whether you don't, you'll answer it, as he means you to."

It was on the edge of her mind to repeat them then to him, but she refrained. It was better then, at that moment, to let him think that he had no cause to blame himself.

"No, my mind's perfectly easy," he added. "Thank God, I don't pose for a paragon; I've got the beast in me all right, but I've treated you square—absolutely square."

Her fingers clutched. To win her desires she must let him think so. And perhaps he had treated her square; she supposed he had.

"Then help me not to be lonely now," she begged. She could see the wave of repulsion beat across his face, but even that did not deter her. "Oh, I don't mean that you should come back and live with me," she went on. "It isn't for that. You can't—you surely can't hate me as much as all that." It was not in her knowledge to realize that he must love her, greater than he had ever loved, if she were to win. To the woman needing the child it is the child alone; to the man, the child is only the child when it is his.

"I don't hate you," he said. He picked up his hat from the settee, and her heart dropped to a leaden weight. "You seem to harp on that. But what you ask, you surely must realize is frankly impossible. I don't wish to be responsible for a child."

"You needn't be responsible," she said eagerly. "You need never see it. You've been generous enough to me in what you've given me. I shan't ask for a penny more—I shan't use the child to extract money from you. You'll never hear from me again. After all, you have loved me," she said piteously. "You did love me once."

He turned angrily away. "My God!" he exclaimed. "You talk as if you were out of your mind! If I did have a child, I should want to see it. I shouldn't want to be ashamed of it; I shouldn't want to disown it, as you'd have me do."

"Well, then, you might see it as often as you wished."

He strode to the door. She must have it now. He had meant to say nothing, wishing to save her feelings; but she must have it now.

"Then I'm engaged to be married," he said firmly. "Do you see now that it's impossible?"

She dropped into a chair, staring strangely at his face.

"You—married?" she whispered.

"Yes; and I've no desire to have things cropping up in my life afterwards, just in the way that this Mrs. Priestly in the divorce courts—"

Sally struggled to her feet.

"Mrs. Priestly?"

"Yes; what about her? Do you know her?"

"What do you know about her?" she asked.

"I'm counsel for her husband."

"You're cross-examining her?"

Straight through her mind leapt that scene in the divorce court when she had witnessed his attack upon the miserable woman whom the law had placed out for his feet to trample on.

"Yes," he replied. "Whatdoyou know about her?"

She sank back into her chair saying nothing.

"You won't say?"

She shook her head.

"Well, it's of not much interest to me. I shouldn't have you subpoenaed, if you did know anything. You know the case, at any rate. Well, I don't want that sort of affair in my life; so you never need mention this matter again. I'll come and see you sometimes, if you want me to; but only on condition that we have none of this. When I'm married, of course, then it'll have to stop."

Sally raised her head. Her eyes were burning—her lips were drawn to a thin colourless line.

"You—who never were going to marry!" she shouted. "You who didn't believe in it—who wouldn't fetter yourself with it! Oh, go! Go!"

CHAPTER VI

That same evening there might have been seen two men seated opposite to each other at a small table in the corner of the grill-room of a well-known restaurant. Throughout the beginning of the meal, they laughed and talked amiably to each other. No one took particular notice of them. The waiter, attendant upon their table, leant against a marble pillar some little distance away and surreptitiously cleaned his nails with the corner of a menu-card. A band played on a raised platform in some other part of the room. From where they sat, they could see the conductor leading his orchestra with the swaying of his violin. He tossed his hair into artistic disorder with the violent intensity of feeling as he played, and his fingers, strained out till the tendons between them were stretched like the strings upon which they moved, felt for the harmonics—shrill notes that pierced through the sounds of all the other instruments.

In the midst of the rattling of plates, the coming and going, the buzz of conversation, these two men chatted good-naturedly over their meal. At its conclusion, they ordered coffee, cigars and liqueurs, and leant back comfortably in their chairs. Hundreds of others there, were doing precisely the same as they—thousands of others in all the restaurants in London. There was nothing remarkable about their faces, their dress or their manner until one of them suddenly leant forward across the table, and his expression, from genial amusement, leapt in sudden changes from the amazement of surprise to the fierceness of contempt and anger. Some exclamation in the force of the moment probably left his lips, for a woman at a table near by turned in her chair and gazed at them with unconcealed curiosity. She kept strained in that position as he brought down his fist on the table. She could see his fingers gripping the cloth. Then the other man put out his hand with a gesture of restraint.

From that they talked on excitedly—one or them driving his questions to the tardy replies of the other. Here and there in their speech the name of God ripped out, and the waiter, placing the card back on one of the empty tables, stood more alert, listening.

Their cigars burnt low, their coffee was drained; yet still they continued, voices pitched now on a lower key, but none the less intense, none the less spurred with vital interest. The man apparently most concerned had ceased from the urging of his questions. His elbows were resting on the table, his face was in his hands. Now and again he nodded in understanding, now and again he ejaculated some remark, pressing his companion to the full measure of what he had to say. Obviously it was a story—the relation of some incident, reluctantly dragged from the one by the persistent, unyielding demands of the other.

The woman at the near table put up her hand to her ear, shutting off the conversation of those with her, striving to catch a word here and there in the endeavour to piece it together. It was about some woman. She—was continually being alluded to. She—had done this—at a later date she had done that. Gathering as little as she did, the woman who listened was still strangely fascinated to curiosity.

Then at last a whole sentence reached her ears in a sudden hush of sound.

The man took his elbows from the table, as if the climax of the story had been reached.

"I know!" he said excitedly; "I know—the type of woman who never breaks a commandment because she daren't, yet never earns a beatitude because she can't; but, my God, if this isn't true—"

Then the other began his reply—

"My dear fellow—should I come and—"

She heard no more. A renewed deafening clatter of plates from the grill drowned the remainder of his sentence.

"There's a little tragedy behind us," said the woman, leaning forward, speaking under her breath to one of her companions. They all turned and gazed in the direction of the table. Then the two men stood up. One of them picked up the bill.

"Pay at the desk, please, sir," said the waiter obsequiously.

He half followed them down the room. They had forgotten to tip him. It was quite obvious that they forgot. Yet his face was a study in the mingling of disappointment and contempt. He stood there looking after them; then he chucked up his head in disgust, and catching the eye of some distant waiter, he made a sign of a nought with his fingers, and looked up at the ceiling.

As they passed the woman's table, she heard one of them say—

"There's not a straight woman in the whole of that damned set—not one!" Then they passed out of hearing.

"I think it's a marvellous thing," said the woman when they had gone, "to think of the thousands of exciting tragedies, romances, crimes perhaps, that are being acted out to their ends all round one, and except for a stray little bit of conversation like that, one would never realize it. I remember hearing a woman in a crowd say something to a man in the most awful voice, full of horror, that I've ever heard. I just caught her saying, 'If he finds it out to-night, either I'll kill myself or he'll do it for me,' and then they got out of the crowd, called a hansom and drove away. Positively, I didn't sleep that night, wondering if he had found it out, wondering if he had killed her, wondering if hundreds of other people had found out hundreds of other horrible things. But it all went in the morning. Cissy had a terrible toothache, and I had to take her to the dentist's."

CHAPTER VII

It was nine o'clock in the evening of the same day on which Traill had been to see Sally. The lights were burning in her room as Janet approached the street door. Opening it, she walked along the passage and began the ascent of stairs. Halfway up the first flight she stopped. The voices of two men, talking rather excitedly, came up to her from the street as if they were nearing the house. Another moment and she heard one bidding the other good night in the passage. Evidently he was coming in. She walked on up the flight of stairs. His footsteps sounded behind her. She took but little more notice of the fact until, when she stopped before Sally's door, he stopped behind her. Then she turned round. Her eyes opened a little wider. She began to say one thing; then she changed her mind and said another.

"Aren't you Mr. Traill?" she asked.

He looked at her more closely in the dim light from the landing window.

"Yes; how did you know?"

"I'm Miss Hallard."

"Oh, oh yes! You're Sally's friend."

"'Bout the only one she has." said Janet. There was no flinching in her eyes from his.

"You mean that for me?"

"Yes."

"Would it surprise you to hear me say I deserve it?"

"Yes, considerably. Isn't it a pity you didn't realize that a bit sooner?"

"Well, we must all have disagreeable times in our lives," he said rigidly. "Sally's had hers, but I guess it's over now. I fancy I've just come from school and learnt my lesson."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you expect me to answer that to you?"

Here, in the first moment, they came to their antagonism, as Janet had always realized they would.

"No, I don't expect it in the least" she replied.

"Well, if you're going in—?"

"Yes, I'm going in." She opened the door and entered the sitting-room. All the lights were burning. Sally's hat lay untidily on the table.

"One moment," said Traill.

Janet turned round.

"I should be glad if you'd allow me to see Sally alone as soon as possible. I want to talk to her. I've got a lot to say."

"I'll go now," she replied.

"No, oh no, see her first. She's probably been expecting you. Didn't she send for you this afternoon, some time after five o'clock—eh?"

"No, I haven't seen her since yesterday. I'll just knock at her door. Sally!" She called the name gently and knocked. Traill walked to the mantelpiece. There was no answer.

"She must be in," he said, "there's her hat."

Janet knocked again. There was no reply. She turned round.

"I wonder can she have gone to bed and be asleep? She looked terribly tired when I saw her yesterday."

She knocked again and tried the door; then bent down and examined the keyhole. The key was inside, and a light was burning in the room. Janet stood up suddenly. Her lips were shaking; her cheeks were white.

"Mr. Traill," she said in a hollow voice, but raising it as though he were some distance away. "This door's locked from the inside, and there's a light in the room."

He took it quite casually. "Better let me try it," he said. "It can't be locked from the inside unless she's there."

Janet stood aside, trembling, as he tried the handle. Then he, too, bent down and examined the keyhole.

"Good God! You're right!" he said thickly.

Janet's eyes roamed feverishly from his face to the door. When he stood back and called out Sally's name, her senses sharpened to a quivering point to catch the slightest sound of a reply. She must be inside—she must be inside! Then why didn't she answer? Why? She recalled Sally's face as she had last seen it, white, drawn, the eyes hollow, the lips but faintly tinged with pink. Now it was in that room, the face that she had lifted and kissed before she had said how wonderful she was. But what was it looking like now? What was it looking like now, alone in that awful silence?

Traill strode back into the room.

"What are you going to do?" asked Janet. "Something's got to be done! What are you going to do?"

"Break down the door," was his answer.

He searched in the fireplace. He searched round the room.

"Take that chair! Take that chair!" cried Janet.

He picked it up by its heavy arms, stood back and then charged the door. There was a shuddering noise, a splintering sound of wood giving. Then it was all quiet again.

He got ready to do it again.

"Wait!" said Janet. In a quivering voice she called Sally's name again.

There was no reply.

"Do it now!" she said, almost incoherently. "Do it now! I believe one of the panels is giving."

He charged it once more, and then again.

"The panel's giving," said Janet.

He flung down the chair from his shoulders. The panel had splintered from its joining at the bottom. He could just push it forward a little, making a slight aperture.

"Get the poker!" he said firmly.

She ran obediently and brought it to him. He prized it into the gap, levered it forward until there was room for his fingers to squeeze through; then he thrust them in and used the strength of his arm, an additional lever, to push an opening down towards the key inside.

"Mind your arm," said Janet; "you're tearing the skin."

He made no reply—forced his hand still further through the gap until the splinters of wood were cutting into the flesh and the blood was dripping down in red blotches on the white paint of the door. She glanced at his face. It was grey. The pupils of his eyes were large with fear. His breath was hunting through his nostrils as he strained to reach the key.

"Now I've got it," he whispered. "Prize that open with the poker as far as you can or I'll never get my hand back."

She leant all her fragile weight against it, aided with the strength of maddening fear. Her ears were strained for the sound in the lock. When she heard the bolt click, she gasped and pressed forward again with redoubled vigour as he slowly drew out his lacerated hand from the crevice.

Then they both stood upright. Together they both drew a deep breath as Traill turned the handle and opened the door. A physical sickness made them weak. Janet half tumbled, half ran into the room. The length of Traill's strides brought him even with her.

Sally was there. Sally was in the room. She lay crumpled on the bed, her legs drawn up, twisted, bent; one arm thrown out covering her face, her other hand gripping a corner of the bed-clothes, stretching out from her in tautened creases. She looked as though some giant hand had knotted her fragile body with fingers of iron.

With a cry, Janet bent over the bed. At her feet, Traill picked up a little bottle, hurriedly read the label, and blindly put it in his pocket.

"Uncover her face," he whispered; "take her arm away from her face—she's choking herself."

"Choking herself!" Janet gently bent the arm back. Every feature was twisted in the same grip, the lips caught in the same iron fingers and dragged in her suffering, baring the teeth—the whole expression of her face was as though she had died, emitting one last scream of unbearable agony. "Look! Choking herself? She's dead!"

With a muffled sound, Traill forced himself to her side. He put his arm round her. He lifted her up. The body dragged against him, the head swung from the loose neck.

"Sally's had her bad time," said Janet, hoarsely, "and, my God, it's over now!"

THE END

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

Messrs. CHAPMAN & HALL'S2/- net Library of Popular Novels.Works by E. TEMPLE THURSTON.THE APPLE OF EDEN.TRAFFIC.THE EVOLUTION OF KATHERINE.MIRAGE.SALLY BISHOP.THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE.THE GREATEST WISH IN THE WORLD.Works by ARNOLD BENNETT,Author of "The Old Wives' Tale," etc.HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND.THE GLIMPSE: An Adventure of the Soul.By W. H. MALLOCK,Author of "The Individualist," etc.A HUMAN DOCUMENT.Works by MAJOR W. P. DRURY.THE PERADVENTURES OF PRIVATE PAGETT.BEARERS OF THE BURDEN.MEN AT ARMS.THE SHADOW ON THE QUARTER DECK.THE TADPOLE OF AN ARCHANGEL AND OTHER STORIES.THE PASSING OF THE FLAG-SHIP.Works by RIDGWELL CULLUM,Author of "The Watchers of the Plains," etc.THE NIGHT RIDERS.THE HOUND FROM THE NORTH.THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE.London: CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited.

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