d her first visit to Gaga
disgusted her and made her feel the more miserable. She had often been
more poignantly affected, but never had she experienced such a sense of
complete distaste for life. She was like a child given an impossible
task to perform; and instead of being able to rise on the wings of her
arrogance as she was in the habit of doing, Sally was weighed down by
leaden sickness and fear. She went slowly downstairs to have her
breakfast, and sat solitary in the big brown dining-room which
overlooked a square of grass and a high wall. A dismal grey oppressed
the atmosphere, and an autumn chill. She could not eat, could only sniff
despairingly and drink a cup of tea and wander to the fire and lay her
forehead against the mantelpiece, which was cooling indeed, but without
comfort. Its hard coldness was unbearable. Sally's arms crept up as a
pillow. She stared downwards at the dead fire.

"O-o-oh!" she groaned bitterly. "I wish I was dead! I do wish I was
dead!" And at the sound of her wretched voice Sally once more gave way
completely and began to sob aloud. She was beaten, and her spirit was
gone.

xv

And so more days passed, each filled with a sort of numbing dread. Sally
thought of the business, of her future, of Toby--from whom she had
received several letter reflecting his moods of ferociousness and
resentment,--and of the bonds which kept her tied to the house. She knew
during all this time no peace. She grew thinner, and began to take less
care of herself. She was not aware of the beginning of a loss of
self-respect, but it was there. She--she who had always been so strict
in regard to her toilette and dress, whatever her state of mind--went
down to breakfast one morning in a kimono which she had found in Madam's
wardrobe and shortened for herself. It was a proof that she no longer
cared for her appearance. She lay through the nights often only
half-asleep, in a stupor which presently led her to an attitude almost
of indifference to the needs of the day. And for the rest of the time
Sally was so lethargic that it one morning occurred to her to think that
she had caught from Gaga whatever was the unnamed illness from which he
was suffering. The thought once arisen, flew to her head. It became a
horror. She had heard of bad fruit corrupting fruit that was sound and
this was a new preoccupation for her. When Gaga would have kissed her
lips she turned away in sudden nausea, fighting instinctively agai