ty rose with a
start. She had an appointment early the next morning with a district
visitor on the East side. She put out her lamp, covered the fire, and
went into her bedroom to undress. In the little glass above her
dressing-table she saw her face reflected against the shadows of the
room, and tears blotted the reflection. What right had she to dream the
dreams of loveliness? A dull face invited a dull fate. She cried quietly
as she undressed, laying aside her clothes with her habitual precision,
setting everything in order for the next day, when the old life must be
taken up as though there had been no break in its routine. Her servant
did not come till eight o'clock, and she prepared her own tea-tray and
placed it beside the bed. Then she locked the door of the flat,
extinguished her light and lay down. But on her bed sleep would not
come, and she lay face to face with the fact that she hated Lily Bart. It
closed with her in the darkness like some formless evil to be blindly
grappled with. Reason, judgment, renunciation, all the sane daylight
forces, were beaten back in the sharp struggle for self-preservation. She
wanted happiness--wanted it as fiercely and unscrupulously as Lily did,
but without Lily's power of obtaining it. And in her conscious impotence
she lay shivering, and hated her friend----

A ring at the door-bell caught her to her feet. She struck a light and
stood startled, listening. For a moment her heart beat incoherently, then
she felt the sobering touch of fact, and remembered that such calls were
not unknown in her charitable work. She flung on her dressing-gown to
answer the summons, and unlocking her door, confronted the shining vision
of Lily Bart.

Gerty's first movement was one of revulsion. She shrank back as though
Lily's presence flashed too sudden a light upon her misery. Then she
heard her name in a cry, had a glimpse of her friend's face, and felt
herself caught and clung to.

"Lily--what is it?" she exclaimed.

Miss Bart released her, and stood breathing brokenly, like one who has
gained shelter after a long flight.

"I was so cold--I couldn't go home. Have you a fire?"

Gerty's compassionate instincts, responding to the swift call of habit,
swept aside all her reluctances. Lily was simply some one who needed
help--for what reason, there was no time to pause and conjecture:
disciplined sympathy checked the wonder on Gerty's lips, and made her
draw her friend silently into t