"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Has it done you good?" he asked.

"No," she answered, and walked past him, leaving him to look after her
and think the matter over.

She went to her own apartment and locked herself in. Having done so,
she lighted every candle and lamp--flooding the place with a garish
mockery of brightness. She sang as she did it--a gay, shrill air from
some _opera bouffe_. She tore off her dark veil and wrappings. Her
eyes and cheeks flamed as if touched by some unholy fire. She moved
with feverish rapidity here and there--dragging a rich dress from a
trunk, and jewels and laces from their places of safe keeping, and
began to attire herself in them. The simple black robe she had worn to
the chapel lay on the floor. As she moved to and fro she set her feet
upon it again and again, and as she felt it beneath her tread a harsh
smile touched her lips.

"I shall not wear you again," she stopped her song once to say.

In half an hour she had made her toilette. She stood before her glass,
a blaze of color and jewels. For a moment she sang no more. From one
of the rooms below there floated up to her sounds of riotous
merriment.

"_This_ is myself," she said; "_this_ is no other."

She opened her door and ran down the staircase swiftly and lightly.
The founder of the feast whose sounds she had heard was a foolish
young fellow who adored her madly. He was rich, and wicked, and
simple. Because he had heard of her return he had taken an apartment
in the house. She heard his voice above the voices of the rest.

In a moment she had flung open the door of the _salon_ and stood upon
the threshold.

At sight of her there arose a rapturous shout of delight.

"Natalie! Natalie! Welcome!"

But instantaneously it died away. One second she stood there,
brilliant, smiling, defiant. The next, they saw that a mysterious
change had seized upon her. She had become deathly white, and was
waving them from her with a wild gesture.

"I am not coming," she cried, breathlessly. "No! No! No!"

And the next instant they could only gaze at each others'
terror-stricken faces, at the place she had left vacant,--for she was
gone.

She went up the stairs blindly and uncertainly. When she reached the
turn of the fourth floor where the staircase was bare and unlighted,
she staggered and sank against the balustrades, her face upturned.

"I cannot go back," she whispered to the darkness and silence above.
"Do you hear? I can