become so. An occasional Madison Avenue car could be
heard ringing along the cold rails, or rhythmically bounding down hill on
a flat wheel. Once some distance away came the long, continuous complaint
of the siren of a fire-engine and the bells and gongs of its comrades;
and then a young man went past, whistling with the purest accuracy of
time and tune the air to which he had just been dancing.

At half-past five the kitchen-maid, a young Swede who feared not God,
neither regarded man, but lived in absolute subjection to the cook, to
whom, unknown to any one else, she every morning carried up breakfast,
was stealing down with a candle in her hand. Her senses were alert, for a
friend of hers had been strangled by burglars in similar circumstances,
and she had never overcome her own terror of the cold, dark house in
these early hours of a winter morning.

She went down not the back stairs, for Mr. Pringle objected that she woke
him as she passed, whereas the carpet on the front stairs was so thick
that there wasn't the least chance of waking the family. As she passed
Mrs. Farron's room she was surprised to see a fine crack of light coming
from under it. She paused, wondering if she was going to be caught, and
if she had better run back and take to the back stairs despite Pringle's
well-earned rest; and as she hesitated she heard a sob, then
another--wild, hysterical sobs. The girl looked startled and then went
on, shaking her head. What people like that had to cry about beat her.
But she was glad, because she knew such a splendid bit of news would
soften the heart of the cook when she took up her breakfast.

By five o'clock it seemed to Adelaide that a whole eternity had passed
and that another was ahead of her, that this night would never end.

When they went up-stairs, while she was brushing her hair--her hair
rewarded brushing, for it was fine and long and took a polish like
bronze--she had wandered into Vincent's room to discuss with him the
question of her father's secretiveness about Mrs. Wayne. It was not, she
explained, standing in front of his fire, that she suspected anything,
but that it was so unfriendly: it deprived one of so much legitimate
amusement if one's own family practised that kind of reserve. Her just
anger kept her from observing Farron very closely. As she talked she laid
her brush on the mantelpiece, and as she did so she knocked down the
letter that had come for him just before they went up-