one what he had done? And it made
him a little more comfortable to know he was sharing the fault with
somebody--probably with Siward, whom he now had the luxury of despising
for the very thing he himself had done.

"Drunkard!" he muttered to himself; "he's in the gutter at last!"

And he repeated it unctuously, almost reconciled to his own shortcoming,
because it was the first time, as far as he knew, that a Belwether might
legitimately enjoy the pleasures of holding the word of a Siward in
contempt.

Sylvia had dismissed her maid, the old feeling of distaste for the touch
of another had returned since the last mad, crushed embrace in Siward's
arms had become a memory. More and more she was returning to old
instincts, old habits of thought, reverting to type once more, virgin of
lip and thought and desire, save when the old memory stopped her heart
suddenly, then sent it racing, touching her face with quick, crimson
imprint.

Now, blue eyes dreaming under the bright masses of her loosened hair,
she sat watching the last glimmer amid the ashes whitening on the
hearth, thinking of Siward and of what had been between them, and of
what could never be--never, never be.

One red spark among the ashes--her ambition, deathless amid the ashes of
life! When that, too, went out, life must be extinct.

What he had roused in her had died when he went away. It could never
awake again, unless he returned to awaken it. And he never would; he
would never come again.

One brief interlude of love, of passion, in her life could neither tint
nor taint the cool, normal sequence of her days. All that life held for
a woman of her caste--all save that--was hers when she stretched out her
hand for it--hers by right of succession, of descent; hers by warrant
unquestioned, by the unuttered text of the ukase to be launched, if
necessary, by that very, very old lady, drowsing, enthroned, as the
endless pageant wound like a jewelled river at her feet.

So Siward could never come again, sauntering toward her through the
sunlight, smiling his absent smile. She caught her breath painfully,
straightening up; a single ash fell in the fire; the last spark went
out.

CHAPTER XI THE CALL OF THE RAIN

The park was very misty and damp and still that morning.

There was a scent of sap and new buds in the February haze, a glimmer
of green on southern slopes, a distant bird note, tentative, then
confident, rippling from the gray tangle of naked