not drawn her blinds, but a gas-lamp standing just in front threw a
feeble glimmer into the room, which fell upon her where she sat. As the
shadows deepened the light grew stronger, and falling direct upon her
eyes, roused her at last from the lethargy into which she had sunk.

She got up and walked to the window, intending to close the shutters.
Listlessly for a moment she looked out into the street, where the
gas-light flickered upon the meeting streams of humanity--old folk and
young, busy and idle, hopeful and despairing, all bent on their own
designs, heedless like herself of the jostling world around them.

She had the shutter in her hand, and was turning it upon its hinges,
when a face in the crowd suddenly arrested her. She had seen it once,
that ghastly painted face, and it had haunted her in her dreams for
weeks and months afterwards. It had tyrannized over her in her sickness,
and only left her in peace when she began to recover her strength under
the bright Italian skies. And now she saw her again, the wife who had
wrecked her husband's happiness, for whom he had lingered in a cruel
prison, who flaunted herself in the streets whilst Alan's brave and
generous heart was stilled for ever.

Cora turned her face as she passed the window, and looked in. She might
not in that uncertain light have recognized the woman whose form stood
out from the darkness behind her, but an impulse moved Lettice which she
could not resist. At the moment when the other turned her head she
beckoned to her with her hand, and quickly threw up the sash of the
window.

"Mon Dieu!" said Cora, coming up close to her, "is it really you? What
do you want with me?"

"Come in! I must speak to you."

"I love you not, Lettice Campion, and you love not me. What would you?"

"I have a message for you--come inside."

"A message! Sapristi! Then I must know it. Open your door."

Lettice closed the window and the shutters, and brought her visitor
inside.

The woman of the study and the woman of the pavement looked at each
other, standing face to face for some minutes without speaking a word.
They were a contrast of civilization, whom nature had not intended to
contrast, and it would have been difficult to find a stronger antagonism
between two women who under identical training and circumstances might
have been expected to develop similar tastes, and character, and
bearing. Both had strong and well-turned figures, above the middle
height,