BUT Jill did not sleep as Graham had slept. The rain poured on all night and it seemed to her that she heard it all night long, though she drifted into intervals of unconsciousness. Dick heard it, too, for she saw the crack of light under his door while he walked about and opened or shut his windows. She could do nothing for Dick now. She wondered if Marthe were lying awake, listening to the rain. And the terrible old lady, what were her thoughts? All three thinking of Dick. How strange it was! How absurd! What did it mean? Was it all a fevered, tumultuous dream, this love that so tormented and severed them? Why could they not all love each other, and Dick, and be happy in the radiance of unity? But no; the night wore on and her pulses, beating in heavy, lonely sorrow, told her that while one was enmeshed in personal life such unity could only come to one in moments that transcended and lifted one above it. It was the fire of life that burned in one, and to escape into its light was to cross from one order of being to another. But it was not the fire she felt, now, or the light; only the slow, sick pulse of sorrow.
She fell asleep at dawn and slept until Amélie knocked at her door with her breakfast tray.
'Ah—c'est un véritable déluge, Madame,' said Amélie,
