arm hung by her
side, and under the white skin he could see the pulses leaping and
throbbing in the arteries, the delicate tissues of her bodice trembled
and shook. Was it possible that in that frivolous little body, under
that corsage of lace and satin and whalebone, there beat one of those
rare and tragic passions, all-consuming, all-absorbing, blind and deaf
to everything but itself? In that case--well, he felt something very
like awe before what he called her miraculous stupidity. But no, it was
impossible; to believe it was to believe in miracles, and he had long ago
lost his faith in the supernatural. Women did not love like that
nowadays.

Tyson left the box before the close of the last act. She kept her place
for ten minutes after the fall of the curtain, while the crowd streamed
out. She stood long after the house was empty, saying nothing, but
waiting--waiting. Once she looked piteously at Stanistreet. Her fingers
trembled so that she could not fasten her cloak, her gloves. He helped
her. A weird little ghost of a smile fluttered to her lips and vanished.

They hurried out at last along empty passages. Tyson was nowhere to be
seen. They drove quickly home.

At the corner of Francis Street the hansom drew up with a jerk and
waited. A crowd blocked the way. She leaned forward with a little cry.
What was it? An accident? No; a fight. The great swinging lamps over
the door of a public-house threw their yellow light on a ring of brutal
faces, men and women, for the most part drunk, trampling, hustling,
shouldering each other in their haste to break through to the center. A
girl reeled from the public-house and stood on the edge of the pavement
bawling a vile song. A man lurched up against the side of the hansom;
a coarse swollen face flaming with drink was pressed to the glass, close
to her own. As she shrank back in horror, turning her head away from the
evil thing, her face sought Stanistreet, the soft fringe of her hair
brushed against his cheek. She had never been so near to him, never, in
the abstraction of her terror, so far away. To-night everything combined
to make his own meaning clear to him, sharpened his fierce indignant
longing to take her away, out of the hell where these things were
possible, to protect her forever from the brutalities of life.

There was a stir; the crowd swayed forward and began to move. They
followed slowly in its wake, hemmed in by the rabble that streamed
towards Ridgmount G