ime well, and had found the Manager raging
over Arithelli's mishap, and ready to dismiss anyone with or without
reason.

Vardri turned his back on the place whistling defiance, and with his
courage fallen below zero. He would have liked to say good-bye to the
horses, and to some of the men who were his friends. He had never
disliked the actual work, and it was at the Hippodrome that he had
first met Arithelli. Her misfortune and his had come together. At any
other time it would not have been quite so bad. A few months ago he
would not have cared whether he lost his place or not.

There had been nothing much in life then, and one could always find a
short way out of it _via_ the water or an overdose of something.

But now the world was changed, and he craved for Life and the fulness
of Life, for he had tasted happiness and stood for a moment in the
outer courts of the House of Love. He had no friends who could have
helped him, and no qualifications for earning his living at any other
trade or profession. He had begun life with a luxurious home, a
refined and useless education, and the mind of a dreamer, an idealist.
None of these things were valuable assets in his present career.

Like Arithelli he spoke several languages more or less fluently, and
like her again possessed both understanding and a love of horses, but
what avail were these things when he had neither money, references nor
influence, and as a further disadvantage he was known to be an
associate of the revolutionaries, and his tendency to consumption would
keep him out of many kinds of employment.

He turned over the few coins in his hand. Just enough to keep him for
a week and then--the deluge!

He waited, prowling up and down the street, impatiently until Emile
appeared in the distance.

A few minutes later, the two men were at the door of Arithelli's
lodgings. The landlady met them on the stairs, hag-like in the
disarray of the early morning, and evidently terrified out of such
humanity as she possessed by the fear of infection. She had gone up
with the early morning coffee and found Arithelli raving aloud and
tearing at her throat. Her first thought had been to turn the girl out
of doors, or, as she was obviously incapable of moving, to send for a
priest and a nursing sister, and have her taken to the public hospital.
A wholesome fear of Emile prevented her from giving utterance to these
charitable impulses.

She invoked every saint