just as another woman sleeps.

d. g. rossetti.

it was not till a week or two later that gertrude brought herself to tell lucy what had happened during her absence. it was a bleak afternoon in the beginning of december; in the next room lay phyllis, cold and stiff and silent for ever; and lucy was drearily searching in a cupboard for certain mourning garments which hung there. but suddenly, from the darkness of the lowest shelf, something shone up at her, a white, shimmering object, lying coiled there like a snake.

it was phyllis's splendid satin gown,[pg 267] which gertrude had flung there on the fateful night, and, from sheer repugnance, had never disturbed.

"but you must send it back," lucy said, when in a few broken words her sister had explained its presence in the cupboard.

lucy was very pale and very serious. she gathered up the satin gown, which nothing could have induced gertrude to touch, folded it neatly, and began looking about for brown paper in which to enclose it.

the ghastly humour of the little incident struck gertrude. "there is some string in the studio," she said, half-ironically, and went back to her post in the chamber of death.

in her long narrow coffin lay phyllis; beautiful and still, with flowers between her hands. she had drifted out of life quietly enough a few days before; to-morrow she would be lying under the newly-turned cemetery sods.

gertrude stood a moment, looking down at the exquisite face. on the breast of the dead girl lay a mass of pale violets which lord watergate had sent the day before, and as gertrude looked, there flashed through her mind, what had long since vanished from it,[pg 268] the recollection of lord watergate's peculiar interest in phyllis.

it was explained now, she thought, as the image of another dead face floated before her vision. that also was the face of a woman, beautiful and frail; of a woman who had sinned. she had never seen the resemblance before; it was clear enough now.

then she took up once again her watcher's seat at the bed-side, and strove to banish thought.

to do and do and do; that is all that remains to one in a world where thinking, for all save a few chosen beings, must surely mean madness.

she had fallen into a half stupor, when she was aware of a subtle sense of discomfort creeping over her; of an odour, strong and sweet and indescribably hateful, floating around her like a winged nightmare. opening her eyes with an effort, she saw mrs. mary on standing gravely at the foot of the bed, an enormous wreath of tuberose in her hand.

gertrude rose from her seat.

"who sent those flowers?" she said, sternly.

[pg 269]

"a servant brought them; he mentioned no name, and there is no card attached."

the woman laid the wreath on the coverlet and discreetly withdrew.

gertrude stood staring at the flowers, fascinated. in the first moment of the cold yet stifling fury which stole over her, she could have taken them in her hands and torn them petal from petal.

one instant, she had stretched out her hand towards them; the next, she had turned away, sick with the sense of impotence, of loathing, of immeasurable disdain.

what weapons could avail against the impenetrable hide of such a man?

"she never cared for him," a vindictive voice whispered to her from the depths of her heart.

then she shrank back afraid before the hatred which held possession of her soul. the passion which had animated her on the fateful evening of phyllis's flight, the very strength which had caused her to prevail, seemed to her fearful and hideous things. she would fain have put the thought of them away; have banished them and all recollection of darrell from her mind for ever.

[pg 270]

it was a bleak december morning, with a touch of east wind in the air, when phyllis was laid in her last resting-place.

to gertrude all the sickening details of the little pageant were as the shadows of a nightmare. standing rigid as a statue by the open grave, she was aware of nothing but the sweet, stifling fragrance of tuberose, which seemed to have detached itself from, and prevailed over, the softer scents of rose and violet, and to float up unmixed from the flower-covered coffin.

lucy stood on one side of her, silent and pale with down-dropt eyes; fanny sobbed vociferously on the other. lord watergate faced them with bent head. the tears rolled down fred devonshire's face as the burial service proceeded. aunt caroline looked like a vindictive ghost. uncle septimus wept silently.

it seemed a hideous act of cruelty to turn away at last and leave the poor child lying there alone, while the sexton shovelled the loose earth on to her coffin; hideous, but inevitable; and at midday gertrude and lucy drove back in the dismal coach to baker street, where mr. maryon had put up alternate shutters in the shop-window,[pg 271] and the umbrella-maker had drawn down his blinds.

gertrude, as she lay awake that night, heard the rain beating against the window-panes, and shuddered.