to the wall and she stood there before the
shutter of a shop-window. After a time the crowd passed, thinned and
disappeared, but the woman remained as though thrown out there by the
human eddy.

The woman remained for a long time unmoving against the shutter of the
shop-window. Finally she was awakened into life by a voice speaking to
her. It was a soft, foreign voice that lisped the liquid accents of the
occasional English words:

"Ma pauvre femme!" it said; "come with me. Vous etes malade!"

The woman followed mechanically in a sort of wonder. The person who had
spoken to her was young and beautifully dressed in furs that covered her
to her feet. She had gotten down from a motorcar that stood beside the
curb--one of those modern vehicles, fitted with splendid trappings.

Beyond the shop-window was a great cafe. The girl entered and the woman
followed. The attendants came forward to welcome the splendid visitor as
one whose arrival at this precise hour of the evening had become a sort
of custom. She gave some directions in a language which the woman did
not understand, and they were seated at a table.

The waiters brought a silver dish filled with a clear, steaming soup and
served it. The girl threw back her fur coat and the dazed woman realized
how beautiful she was. Her hair was yellow like ripe corn and there were
masses of it banked and clustered about her head; her eyes were blue,
and her voice, soft and alluring, was like a friendly arm put around the
heart.

The miserable woman was so confused by this transformation--by the
sudden swing of the door in the wall that had admitted her into this
new, unfamiliar world--that she was never afterward able to remember
precisely by what introductory words her story was drawn out. She found
herself taken up, comforted and made to tell it.

Her husband had been a butler in the service of a Mr. Marsh, an
eccentric man who lived in one of the old downtown houses of the
city. He was a retired banker with no family. The man lived alone. He
permitted no servants in the house except the butler. Meals were sent
in on order from a neighboring hotel and served by the butler as the man
directed. He received few visitors in the house and no tradespeople were
permitted to come in. There seemed no reason for this seclusion except
the eccentricities of the man that had grown more pronounced with
advancing years.

It was the custom of the butler to leave the house at eight o'clo