and heavy rugs. A struggle--even the fall of a body
--would make no sound. It was strangely colourless
also, in a light which seemed always subdued. Nor
was it all furnished in equal taste. One would have
said that when the young banker had lavished thou-
sands upon this boudoir, this inner jewel-case for his
precious possession, he had failed to count the cost
and had suddenly been arrested by a threat to his
own solvency. It was luxurious where it looked out
upon the busy street below. At the farther side it was
bare, spartan, and reflected rather the taste of a most
ascetic man than of a pleasure-loving woman. Per-
haps that was why she only came there for a few
hours, sometimes two, sometimes four, in the day,
but while she was there she lived intensely, and within
this nightmare room Lucille Mason was a very differ-
ent and a more dangerous woman than elsewhere.

Dangerous--that was the word. Who could doubt
it who saw her delicate figure stretched upon the great
bearskin which draped the sofa. She was leaning
upon her right elbow, her delicate but determined chin
resting upon her hand, while her eyes, large and lan-
guishing, adorable but inexorable, stared out in front
of her with a fixed intensity which had in it something
vaguely terrible. It was a lovely face--a child's face,
and yet Nature had placed there some subtle mark,
some indefinable expression, which told that a devil
lurked within. It had been noticed that dogs shrank
from her, and that children screamed and ran from her
caresses. There are instincts which are deeper than
reason.

Upon this particular afternoon something had
greatly moved her. A letter was in her hand, which

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