poke never a word, but as Graveling struggled back to his
senses he could see the scorn upon her face.

Aaron and a man servant entered the room simultaneously. Maraton
pointed to the figure upon the floor.

"Aaron," he said, "your friend Mr. Graveling has met with a slight
accident. You had better take him outside and put him in a taxicab."

Graveling rose painfully to his feet. He was very pale, and there was
blood upon his cheek. He leaned on Aaron's arm and he looked towards
Maraton and Julia.

"Better apologise and shake hands," Maraton advised quietly.

Graveling seemed not to have heard him. He looked towards them both,
and his fingers gripped Aaron's shoulder so that the young man winced
with pain. Then without a single word he turned towards the door.

"Let him go!" Julia cried fiercely. "I am only thankful that you
punished him. We do not want his apologies. I hope that I may never
see him again!"

Graveling, who had reached the door, leaning heavily upon Aaron, turned
around. His face, with the streak of blood upon his cheek, was ghastly.
He left the room between Aaron and the servant. They heard his unsteady
footsteps in the hall, a whistle, the departure of the cab. "Aaron has
gone with him," Maraton remarked quietly. "Perhaps it is as well."

Her face suddenly relaxed and softened. The fury left her eyes; she
sank back into the easy chair.

"I am ashamed," she moaned. "Oh, I am ashamed!"

CHAPTER XXV

The sound of traffic outside had died away. The silence became almost
unnaturally prolonged. Only the echo of Julia's last words seemed,
somehow or other, to remain, words which inspired Maraton with a curious
and indefinable emotion, a pity which he could not altogether analyse.
Twice he had turned softly as though to leave the room, and twice he had
returned. He stood now upon the hearthrug, looking down at her,
perplexed, himself in some degree agitated. She was not weeping,
although every now and then her bosom rose and fell as though with some
suppressed storm. It was simply a paroxysm of sensitiveness. She was
afraid to look up, afraid to break a silence which to her was full of
consolation. Maraton, a little ashamed of the scene in which he had
been an unwilling participator, bitterly self-accusing, still found his
thoughts diverted from his own humiliation as he watched the girl--a
long, slim figure bent in one strangely graceful curve, her beautiful
hair gleaming in the soft light, h