one arm hanging over the side and the other flung across his breast. His skin was so colourless and his features so peaceful that for a shattering second she thought him dead. Then she saw a smile play about his mouth. She recovered herself, but was afraid to stir, thinking him asleep. She saw that he was partly dressed under his blue silk dressing-gown, that he had on socks and evening slippers, and that he had evidently recently shaved. There was a small cut on his chin and a tiny streak of blood. She wondered if he had meant to have dinner with her, but had been unequal to the effort.
A piece of wood fell in the fireplace making quite a startling noise. She jumped nervously herself. But she saw he did not stir. Then something about the dead whiteness of his face arrested her. She spoke his name fearfully. She moved up to the lounge and spoke again. He did not move.
Seeing him thus for the first time unmistakably under a drug it came to her with the force of a blow, though she had felt for some time that he was using something to put himself to sleep. She looked at his wrists, and it was not the first time she had looked there for significant marks. She knew nothing of the effect of narcotics. She had thought once or twice lately that he had had a strange expression in his eyes, that he had looked through her and beyond her as if he were seeing things not of the earth. How far he had gone with this thing she did not know. Whether he was powerless against it she did not know. How long it would be before he was unbearable because of it she did not know. But she imagined the worst.
And then as she looked at him a smile again mysteriously came to life upon his face, and flitted about it, and faded away. She felt a sudden choking pity for him. At
