ng whether he suffered more from the boredom of the ballet or
from the neuralgia caused by a draught which blew directly on the back
of his neck. That the show amused Connie was sufficient reason for
sticking it out until the end, but there were moments during the long
evening, when he felt, as he sat with his blank gaze fixed upon the
glancing red legs on the stage, that every stifled yawn was but an
unuttered exclamation of profanity.

"Now really and truly was it worth it?" he asked, with a laugh, when
they stood again at their own door.

"But didn't you think it lovely?" enquired Connie, irritably, as she
entered the hall and paused a moment under the electric light. The
excitement had faded from her face, leaving it parched and wan as from a
burned out fire, and the sinister blue shadows had leaped out in the
hollows beneath her eyes.

"I think you were," he answered merrily, following her as she turned
away and went slowly up the staircase.

A smile at the compliment flickered for an instant upon her lips; then
as she reached her bedroom, her strength failed her utterly, and with a
little moaning cry she swayed forward and fell in a huddled pink heap
upon the floor. As he lifted her she begged piteously for
wine--brandy--for anything which would drive away the terrible
faintness.

"It is like falling into a gulf," she cried, "I am slipping away and I
can't hold myself--"

He measured a dose of cognac and gave it to her with a little water, but
when, after swallowing it eagerly, she begged for more, he shook his
head and began undressing her as he would have undressed a child. A
touch at the bell, he knew, would bring her maid, but a powerful
delicacy constrained him as he was about to ring; these were scenes
whose very hideousness made them sacred, and with Connie's distracted
raving in his ears, he became suddenly thankful for the absolute
loneliness, for the empty house around him. As she lay upon the bed
where he had placed her, looking, he thought even then, like a crushed
blossom in her gown of pale pink chiffon, he bent over her in an anguish
of pity which oppressed him like a physical weight. The very hatred in
her eyes as she looked up at him made the burden of his sympathy the
heavier to bear. Had she loved him it might have been easier for her,
but he knew now that in her sanest days she felt no stronger sentiment
for him than tolerant gratitude. And during her frantic nights the
violence of her