d baffled her!--she understood it
now! She had nothing to live for! In a flash all would be finished.
Impulsively she stepped into the roadway to cross to the parapet.

"Hallo, hallo!" The horse's head was almost on her, and she drew back
with a natural unreasoned movement. The driver shook his whip and
shouted angrily, then went onwards. But a moment's vision had burnt
itself on her consciousness as deep as that first sight of the portrait
of Lady Lakeden. Wyndham was seated in the vehicle side by side with
Lady Lakeden, his face turned towards her, whilst her hand clutched his
convulsively. And in that same swift moment Alice had felt Lady
Lakeden's face encounter hers with mutual intensity. The sudden backward
movement had almost paralysed her muscles; an agonising pain racked her
at her knees and ankles. She dragged herself to the nearest wall and
leaned against it. The picture of those two side by side was always with
her: of Lady Lakeden's eyes flashing full on her own.

She knew not how many minutes had passed when she was called to herself
by the inexorable clock that had sounded its notes throughout this
strange evening, and that now seemed to fling its boom through all the
spaces of the night. Was the universe resounding with a peal of
mockery?--disproportionately Titanic for so humble a soul as hers, so
paltry a destiny? Ah, she remembered now her frustrated purpose; the
instant when death had beckoned her imperiously and she had responded
with every fibre of her soul and body. Why, then, had she not let the
wheels crush her?

But she shuddered. Ah, no, no! Thank Heaven she had been inspired to
save herself. How his life would have been saddened and embittered by so
ironic an accident! She had meant only to help him; never to be a cause
of grief to him! Since apparently it had been thus fated, better perhaps
to live on. "I have others as well to think of--father and mother!" she
murmured. "How wicked it was of me to forget them! Besides, as I never
expected anything in life, why should I be disappointed now at getting
nothing?" The argument seemed convincing, so painfully she began to
hobble along the Embankment, moving again towards the familiar street,
why she knew not. But her lips kept muttering, to herself. "She has gone
with him alone to his studio. She is a wicked woman."

And opposite the house, that had held her brilliant hopes of love and
wonderful happiness for so brief a period, she stood still