his master grunted from the depths of his chair.

"A lady to see you, my lord," replied the man.

"I'm out."

"That's what I said, my lord."

"Well?"

"The lady said that was all nonsense; she 'ad called at the Sanatorium,
and they'd said you was 'ere."

"Then her name's Delarayne," said Lord Henry.

"Yes, that's it, my lord."

"Very well, then, show her up."

"That woman's a wonder," St. Maur exclaimed. "It is a boiling hot day;
at any moment there may be a storm; there was probably no fly at the
station,--there never is when I come,--and she must have walked the
whole of the two miles in the dust. She has an eye on you, my friend."

"Yes," said Lord Henry, "and by the time a woman has her eye on you, she
usually has her claws in you as well. You needn't go," he added, as he
noticed St. Maur preparing to leave. "But she's an admirable woman. Good
taste amounts almost to heroism in these women who battle with age until
their very last breath."

Mrs. Delarayne, if anything more regal and more youthful than ever, but
certainly showing signs of having taken violent exercise along a chalky
thoroughfare, stepped eagerly towards Lord Henry.

"My dear Lord Henry," she began, "so good of you to be in only to me.
But oh, I felt I must see you before leaving town."

She turned and shook hands with St. Maur, and Lord Henry moved an easy
chair in her direction.

"Oh, that's right; give me a chair, quick!" she gasped. "I'm
broken--broken in body and spirit."

Lord Henry asked the expected question.

"Only this," she said, "that my life soon won't be worth a moment's
purchase."

"You are tired," suggested her host. "You don't look after yourself."

"It isn't that," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined. "Nobody takes greater care of
themselves than I do. I go to bed every night at ten o'clock precisely,
and read until half-past two. What more can I do?"

Lord Henry blinked rapidly, and surveyed her with an air of deep
interest. "And you say you are leaving town?" he enquired.

"Yes, I'm taking my family to Brineweald, you know. It is my annual
penance, my yearly sacrificial offering to my children. It lasts just
six weeks. By the end of it, of course, I am at death's door; but I feel
that I can then face the remaining forty-six weeks of gross selfishness
with a clean conscience and a brazen face."

"Who's going?"

"Oh, the usual crowd,--my daughters, of course, a friend of theirs, a
young Jewess, and perhaps the Fearw