o
confine her being; she hurried to the door in order to escape. Directly
she opened it, she found Parkins, the over-dressed maid, outside, who,
directly she saw Mavis, barred her further progress.

"What is it, miss?" she asked.

"Mrs Hamilton! I must see her."

"You can't, miss."

"I must. I must. There's something going on. I must see her."

A fearsome expression came over the maid's face as she said:

"I was coming to remind you from madam of your promise to her not to
leave the drawing-room."

"I must. I must."

"If I may say so, miss, it will be as much as your place is worth to
disobey madam."

These words brought a cold shock of reason to Mavis's fevered
excitement.

She looked blankly at the servant for a moment or two, before saying:

"Thank you, Parkins; I will wait inside."

If her many weeks of looking for employment had taught her nothing
else, they now told her how worse than foolish it would be to shatter
at one blow Mrs Hamilton's good opinion of her. In compliance with her
employer's request, she returned to the drawing-room, her nerves all on
edge.

Although more convinced than before of the presence of some
abomination, she made a supreme effort to divert her thoughts into
channels promising relief from her present tension of mind.

She caught up and eagerly examined the first thing that came to hand.
It was a large, morocco-bound, gold-edged photograph album; almost
before she was aware of it, she was engrossed in its contents. It was
full from cover to cover of coloured photographs of women. There were
dark girls, fair girls, auburn girls, every type of womanhood to be met
with under Northern skies; they ranged from slim girls in their teens
to over-ripe beauties, whose principal attraction was the redundance of
their figures. For all the immense profusion of varied beauty which the
women displayed, they had certainly two qualities in common--they all
wore elaborate evening dress; they were all photographed to display to
the utmost advantage their physical attractions. Otherwise, thought
Mavis, there was surely nothing to differentiate them from the usual
run of comely womanhood. Always a lover of beauty, Mavis eagerly
scanned the photographs in the book. To her tense imagination, it was
like wandering in a highly cultivated garden, where there were flowers
of every hue, from the timid shrinking violet and the rosebud, to the
over-blown peony, to greet the senses. It was as if sh