g came to Leila, vanished, came again. Nonsense! But--what
an awful thing, if true! That which had always seemed to her such an
exaggerated occurrence in the common walks of life--why! now, it was
a tragedy! Instinctively she raised herself and put her arms round the
girl.

"My poor dear!" she said; "you're fancying things!"

The colour had faded out of Noel's face, and, with her head thrown back
and her eyelids half-closed, she looked like a scornful young ghost.

"If it is--I shan't live. I don't mean to--it's easy to die. I don't
mean Daddy to know."

"Oh! my dear, my dear!" was all Leila could stammer.

"Was it wrong, Leila?"

"Wrong? I don't know--wrong? If it really is so--it was--unfortunate.
But surely, surely--you're mistaken?"

Noel shook her head. "I did it so that we should belong to each other.
Nothing could have taken him from me."

Leila caught at the girl's words.

"Then, my dear--he hasn't quite gone from you, you see?"

Noel's lips formed a "No" which was inaudible. "But Daddy!" she
whispered.

Edward's face came before Leila so vividly that she could hardly see
the girl for the tortured shape of it. Then the hedonist in her revolted
against that ascetic vision. Her worldly judgment condemned and deplored
this calamity, her instinct could not help applauding that hour of life
and love, snatched out of the jaws of death. "Need he ever know?" she
said.

"I could never lie to Daddy. But it doesn't matter. Why should one go on
living, when life is rotten?"

Outside the sun was shining brightly, though it was late October. Leila
got up from her knees. She stood at the window thinking hard.

"My dear," she said at last, "you mustn't get morbid. Look at me! I've
had two husbands, and--and--well, a pretty stormy up and down time of
it; and I daresay I've got lots of trouble before me. But I'm not going
to cave in. Nor must you. The Piersons have plenty of pluck; you mustn't
be a traitor to your blood. That's the last thing. Your boy would have
told you to stick it. These are your 'trenches,' and you're not going to
be downed, are you?"

After she had spoken there was a long silence, before Noel said:

"Give me a cigarette, Leila."

Leila produced the little flat case she carried.

"That's brave," she said. "Nothing's incurable at your age. Only one
thing's incurable--getting old."

Noel laughed. "That's curable too, isn't it?"

"Not without surrender."

Again there was a silence, wh