with a deep rich border of poppies and corn-flowers running round; at the damask curtains, with the same border; at the white carpet on which the same flowers are scattered in delicate knots. I know now why he uses this room; it was to have been mine. The sex of the occupier is shown by the massive writing appointments, the whips and driving gloves, the half-smoked cigar on the table, and all the orderly litter of a man's favourite room. And this is my Eden that I have never entered, until I come to it as a visitor to his wife. I look up, Paul is standing at the door, and I rise and go to him, leaving nurse behind. At the door of the room where Silvia lies he leaves me, and I go in alone. The room is so darkened that, coming out of the broad daylight, I can barely make out the outline of Silvia's face against the pillows. As I approach her an elderly woman by her side rises and passes out.
"You sent for me," I say, looking down on her, "and I am here."
Now that my eyes are more accustomed to the light, I see that she is mortally pale, and her breath comes in quick, short pants.
"Do you know that I am dying?" she says, lifting her haggard lovely eyes to my face. "I dare say you are very glad?"
Desperately ill though I see plainly enough that she is, something in her voice tells me that she is not dying, no, nor in immediate danger of death.
"Did you only send for me to ask me that if so, I am better away."
"Are you so hard-hearted?" she asks between her short pants. "Feel!"
She takes my hand and lays it against her heart, which seems to be leaping out of her body with every beat.
"Do you think that is shamming? Sooner or later it will kill me—not to-day, perhaps, or to-morrow, but some time."
She looses my hand and sits up in bed, and her fleece of hair
