se. Do you doubt my friendship?"

Rita's maid came in to assist her in changing for the third act, and
Pyne went out of the room. But, in spite of his assurances, Rita could
not forget that fierce, almost savage expression which had appeared upon
his face when she had told him of Mrs. Sin's visit.

Later she taxed him on the point, but he suffered her inquiry with
imperturbable sangfroid, and she found herself no wiser respecting the
cause of his annoyance. Painful twinges of conscience came during the
ensuing days, when she found herself in her fiance's company, but she
never once seriously contemplated dropping the acquaintance of Mrs. Sin.

She thought, vaguely, as she had many times thought before, of cutting
adrift from the entire clique, but there was no return of that sincere
emotional desire to reform which she had experienced on the day that
Monte Irvin had taken her hand, in blind trust, and had asked her to be
his wife. Had she analyzed, or been capable of analyzing, her intentions
with regard to the future, she would have learned that daily they
inclined more and more towards compromise. The drug habit was sapping
will and weakening morale, insidiously, imperceptibly. She was caught in
a current of that "sacred river" seen in an opium-trance by Coleridge,
and which ran--

"Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea."

Pyne's big car was at the stage-door on the fateful Saturday night, for
Rita had brought her dressing-case to the theatre, and having called for
Kilfane and Mollie Gretna they were to proceed direct to Limehouse.

Rita, as she entered the car, noticed that Juan Mareno, Sir Lucien's
man, and not the chauffeur with whom she was acquainted, sat at the
wheel. As they drove off:

"Why is Mareno driving tonight, Lucy?" she asked.

Sir Lucien glanced aside at her.

"He is in my confidence," he replied. "Fraser is not."

"Oh, I see. You don't want Fraser to know about the Limehouse journey?"

"Naturally I don't. He would talk to all the men at the garage, and from
South Audley Street the tit-bit of scandal would percolate through every
stratum of society."

Rita was silent for a few moments, then:

"Were you thinking about Monte?" she asked diffidently.

Pyne laughed.

"He would scarcely approve, would he?"

"No," replied Rita. "Was that why you were angry when I told you I was
going?"

"This 'anger,' to which you constantly revert, had no existence outside
your o