Copyright, 1907, 1911, By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved Published, January, 1911 Second Printing Printers S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A....

“ Y ou may not care for the play,” Ellison said eagerly. “You are of the old world, and Isteinism to you will simply spell chaos and vulgarity. But the woman! well, you will see her! I don’t want to prejudice you by praises which you would certainly think extravagant! I will say nothing.” Matravers smiled gravely as he took his seat in the box and looked out with some wonder at the ill-lit, half-empty theatre. “I am afraid,” he said, “that I am very much out of place here, yet do not imagine tha

M atravers stood at an open window, reading a note by the grey dawn light. Below him stretched the broad thoroughfare of Piccadilly, noiseless, shadowy, deserted. He had thrown up the window overcome by a sudden sense of suffocation, and a chill, damp breeze came stealing in, cooling his parched forehead and hot, dry eyes. For the last two or three hours he had been working with an unwonted and rare zest; it had happened quite by chance, for as a rule he was a man of regular, even mechanical hab

A t ten o’clock he breakfasted, after three hours’ sleep and a cold bath. In the bright, yet soft spring daylight, the lines of his face had relaxed, and the pallor of his cheeks was less unnatural. He was still a man of remarkable appearance; his features were strong and firmly chiselled, his forehead was square and almost hard. He wore no beard, but a slight, black moustache only half-concealed a delicate and sensitive mouth. His complexion and his soft grey eyes were alike possessed of a sing

S he came to him so noiselessly, that for a moment or two he was unaware of her entrance. There was neither the rustle of skirts nor the sound of any movement to apprise him of it, yet he became suddenly conscious that he was not alone. He turned around at once and saw her standing within a few feet of him. She held out her hand frankly. “So you have come,” she said; “I thought that you would. But then you had very little choice, had you?” she added with a little laugh. She passed him, and delib

M atravers passed out into the street with a curious admixture of sensations in a mind usually so free from any confusion of sentiments or ideas. The few words which he had been compelled to exchange with Thorndyke had grated very much against his sense of what was seemly; he was on the whole both repelled and fascinated by the incidents of this visit of his. Yet as he walked leisurely homewards through the bright, crowded streets, he recognized the existence of that strange personal charm in Be

F or nearly half an hour he sat in his usual place under the trees, watching with indifferent eyes the constant stream of carriages passing along the drive. It seemed to him only a few hours since he had sat there before, almost in the same spot, a solitary figure in the cold, grey twilight, yet watching then, even as he was watching now, for that small victoria with its single occupant whose soft dark eyes had met his so often with a frank curiosity which she had never troubled to conceal. Some

A n incident, which Matravers had found once or twice uppermost in his mind during the last few days, was recalled to him with sudden vividness as he took his seat in an ill-lit, shabbily upholstered box in the second tier of the New Theatre. He seemed almost to hear again the echoes of that despairing cry which had rung out so plaintively across the desert of empty benches from somewhere amongst the shadows of the auditorium. Several times during the performance he had glanced up in the same di

M atravers began to find himself, for the first time in his life, seriously attracted by a woman. He realized it in some measure as he walked homeward in the early morning, after this last interview with Berenice; he knew it for an absolute fact on the following evening as he walked through the crowded streets back to his rooms with the manuscript of the play which he had been reading to her in his pocket. He felt himself moving in what was to some extent an unreal atmosphere. His senses were ti

N othing short of a miracle could have made Matravers’ luncheon party a complete success; yet, so far as Berenice was concerned, it could scarcely be looked upon in any other light. Her demeanour towards Adelaide Robinson and Fergusson was such as to give absolutely no opportunity for anything disagreeable! She frankly admitted both her inexperience and her ignorance. Yet, before they left, both Fergusson and his companion began to understand Matravers’ confidence in her. There was something alm

M atravers’ luncheon party marked the termination for some time of any confidential intercourse between Berenice and himself. Every moment of her time was claimed by Fergusson, who, in his anxiety to produce a play from which he hoped so much before the wane of the season, gave no one any rest, and worked himself almost into a fever. There were two full rehearsals a day, and many private ones at her rooms. Matravers calling there now and then found Fergusson always in possession, and by degrees

T he enthusiasm with which Matravers’ play had been received on the night of its first appearance was, if anything, exceeded on the night before the temporary closing of the theatre for the usual summer vacation. The success of the play itself had never been for a moment doubtful. For once the critics, the general press, and the public, were in entire and happy agreement. The first night had witnessed an extraordinary scene. An audience as brilliant as any which could have been brought together

M atravers never altogether forgot the sensations with which he awoke on the following morning. Notwithstanding a sleepless night, he rose and made a deliberate toilet with a wonderful buoyancy of spirits. The change which had come into his life was a thing so wonderful that he could scarcely realize it. Yet it was true! He had found the one experience in life which had hitherto been denied him, and he was amazed at the full extent of its power and sweetness. He felt himself to be many years you

M atravers walked back to his rooms and ordered his portmanteau to be packed. Then he went out, and after making all his arrangements for an absence from town, bought a Bradshaw. There were two trains, he found, by which he could travel, one at three, the other at half-past four. He arranged to catch the earlier one, and drove to his club for lunch. Afterwards he strolled towards the smoking-room, but finding it unusually full, was on the point of withdrawing. As he lingered on the threshold, a

A   man wrote it, from his little room in the heart of London, whilst night faded into morning. He wrote it with leaden heart and unwilling mechanical effort—wrote it as a man might write his own doom. Every fresh sentence, which stared up at him from the closely written sheets seemed like another landmark in his sad descent from the pinnacles of his late wonderful happiness down into the black waters of despair. When he had finished, and the pen slipped from his stiff, nerveless fingers, there

T he week that followed the sending of his letter was, to Matravers, with his love for equable times and emotions, like a week in hell! He had set himself a task not easy even to an ordinary man of business, but to him trebly difficult and harassing. Day after day he spent in the city—a somewhat strange visitor there, with his grave, dignified manner and studied fastidiousness of dress and deportment. He was unversed in the ways of the men with whom he had to deal, and he had no commercial aptit

B erenice seemed to dwell always in the twilight. At first Matravers thought that the room was empty, and he advanced slowly towards the window. And then he stopped short. Berenice was lying in a crumpled heap on the low couch, almost within touch of his hands. She was lying on her side, her supple figure all doubled up, and the folds of her loose gown flowing around her in wild disorder. Her face was half hidden in her clasped hands. “Berenice,” he cried softly. She did not answer. She was asle

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