convince anyone is the last thing that can be destroyed in a woman's
heart.

It was nearly six o'clock when Lady Holme heard a step coming up the
stairs. She was still sitting in the deep chair, and had scarcely moved.
The step startled her. She put her hands on the arms of the chair and
leaned forward. The step passed her bedroom. She heard the door of the
dressing-room opened and then someone moving about.

"Fritz!" she called. "Fritz!"

There was no answer. She got up and went quickly to the dressing-room.
Her husband was there in his shirt sleeves. His evening coat and
waistcoat were lying half on a chair, half on the floor, and he was in
the act of unfastening his collar. She looked into his face, trying to
read it.

"Well?" she said. "Well?"

"Go to bed!" he said brutally.

"What have you done?"

"That's my business. Go to bed. D'you hear?"

She hesitated. Then she said:

"How dare you speak to me like that? Have you seen Mr. Carey?"

Lord Holme suddenly took his wife by the shoulders; pushed her out of
the room, shut the door, and locked it.

They always slept in the same bedroom. Was he not going to bed at all?
What had happened? Lady Holme could not tell from his face or manner
anything of what had occurred. She looked at her clock and saw her
husband had been out of the house for two hours. Indignation and
curiosity fought within her; and she became conscious of an excitement
such as she had never felt before. Sleep was impossible, but she got
into bed and lay there listening to the noises made by her husband in
his dressing-room. She could just hear them faintly through the door.
Presently they ceased. A profound silence reigned. There was a sofa
in the dressing-room. Could he be trying to sleep on it? Such a thing
seemed incredible to her. For Lord Holme, although he could rough it
when he was shooting or hunting, at home or abroad, and cared little for
inconvenience when there was anything to kill, was devoted to comfort in
ordinary life, and extremely exigent in his own houses. For nothing, for
nobody, had Lady Holme ever known him to allow himself to be put out.

She strained her ears as she lay in bed. For a long time the silence
lasted. She began to think her husband must have left the dressing-room,
when she heard a noise as if something--some piece of furniture--had
been kicked, and then a stentorian "Damn!"

Suddenly she burst out laughing. She shook against the pillows. She
laughed