so
as not to break her slumber, and then drew her to his breast. Ah
his treasure! his world! Surely now all was well since she was
safe in his arms! He did not feel the deathly coldness. There was a
whizzing in his brain where Nature had laid her finger on a vein,
and broken it that he might be released from sorrow and die.

"Saidie?" he murmured again as her breast pressed his, and put his
lips to hers.

As his life had first dawned in her kiss, so it went back now to
the lips that had given it, and in that kiss he died.

II

There was complete silence in the large room, filled with long,
wavering shadows that the flickering firelight chased over the
walls and amongst the gilt-edged tables.

Beyond the windows the dusk was gathering quickly in the wind-swept
street, beneath the leaden sky. From the pane nearest the fire a
side-light fell across a man's figure leaning against the corner of
the mantel-shelf. A ruddy glow from the hearth struck upon the silk
skirt of a girl leaning back in the easy-chair beneath the other
corner.

Her face is lost in the shadow.

He is a good-looking fellow, very. The high white collar that shows
up in the dusk is fastened round a long, well-set neck; the figure
in the blue serge suit is straight and pleasing, and the shoulders
erect and slim.

The girl's eyes, looking out of the shadow, take in these points,
and the pleasure they give her seems inextricably confused with
dull pain. Her gaze passes on to his face, and rests eagerly,
almost thirstily, upon it.

There is light enough still to show her its well-cut oval, spoiled
now by the haggard falling in of the cheeks, the lines in the
forehead, and the swellings beneath the eyes.

He shifts his position a little and glances through the window. His
eyes are full of irritation, and the girl knows it, though they are
turned from her. She gives a suppressed, inaudible sigh; his
attitude now brings out the impatient discontent on his mouth and
the rigid determination of the chin.

"I suppose you mean two people can live upon nothing?" His voice is
cold, even hostile, and he speaks apparently to the panes, but the
tones are well-bred and pleasing; and again the girl wonders dimly
which is the predominating sensation in her--pleasure or pain.

"No," she says, in rather a suffocated voice. "But I say, if either
person has enough, or the two together, it does not matter which
has it, or which has the most."

Silence,