ry much
enlightened. Her ignorance of everything connected with illness was
supreme, and since childhood she had had no recollection of medicine
and doctors. Her parents indulged in theories on the subject of
complaints, the principal one being a large disbelief in their
existence. To them anything unhealthy or ailing was an aversion, a
thing to be avoided rather than pitied.

For accidents, sprains and breakages their pharmacopoeia suggested and
did not go beyond two ideas,--salt and water and Nature.

The Oriental strain in her character helped her to endure where an
ordinary woman would have fussed, cried, or grumbled. At home if she
had had a fall or did not look her best she had been expected to
consider herself in disgrace, and to keep out of the way till such time
as she had completely recovered her looks and spirits.

When she returned to her lodgings, it did not occur to her to rouse the
landlady and demand remedies or attentions. The walk home had been a
nightmare, and now she had all she wanted--solitude and the blessed
darkness. She threw off her dress and boots, and walked the room hour
after hour. She still heard the brazen band, and saw the flaming
lights and her ears echoed to the dreadful sounds of hissing.
Sometimes she had drunk feverishly of the very doubtful water against
which Emile had so often cautioned her. When it was nearly dawn she
gave in, and lay huddled up on the bed, half-delirious with the pain
and feeling of suffocation.

Two streets away, and in a room more squalid than her own, Vardri was
also enduring his own private Purgatory. Hers was physical, his
mental. That was all the difference.

Long before half-past eight he was down at the stables and there
received the dismissal he had fully expected, being ordered off the
premises by the head groom, who had received directions the night
before to give Vardri a week's wages, and turn him out of the place
without delay. It was no use protesting. The Manager was not yet
visible, and even if he had been Vardri knew there was no appeal.

There had been complaints about his negligence more than once, and of
course he had been missed on the previous evening. None of the
"strappers" would have reported him, but one of the clowns, a Spaniard
with whom he had fought for ill-treating a horse, had seen him leaving
the vicinity of the dressing-rooms, and had carried the information to
headquarters.

The informer had chosen his t