James in charge of Miss Pinnegar. Time was all
deranged.

Miss Pinnegar was a nervous nurse. She sat in horror and
apprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James in
terror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what she
could. But one would have said she was repulsed, she found her task
unconsciously repugnant.

During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings came up and said that
the Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to Miss
Houghton.

"Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Houghton is seriously ill," said
Miss Pinnegar sharply.

When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon she found
a package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame: "To
Miss Houghton, with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks from
Kishwegin."

The comb with its carved, beast-faced serpent was her portion.
Alvina asked if there had been any other message. None.

Mr. May came in, and stayed for a dismal half-hour. Then Alvina went
back to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious.
Miss Pinnegar came down, red eyed and sullen looking. The condition
of James gave little room for hope.

In the early morning he died. Alvina called Mrs. Rollings, and they
composed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and not light.
Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly
chamber at the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could
not. At half-past seven she arose, and started the business of the
new day. The doctor came--she went to the registrar--and so on.

Mr. May came. It was decided to keep open the theatre. He would find
some one else for the piano, some one else to issue the tickets.

In the afternoon arrived Frederick Houghton, James's cousin and
nearest relative. He was a middle-aged, blond, florid, church-going
draper from Knarborough, well-to-do and very _bourgeois_. He tried
to talk to Alvina in a fatherly fashion, or a friendly, or a helpful
fashion. But Alvina could not listen to him. He got on her nerves.

Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She was
in the drawing-room with her cousin, to give the interview its
proper air of solemnity. She saw Ciccio rearing his yellow bicycle
against the wall, and going with his head forward along the narrow,
dark way of the back yard, to the scullery door.

"Excuse me a minute," she said to her cousin, who looked up
irritably as she left the room.

She was just in t