door; and it led him to the old woman's room. It was empty; well ordered for the day. There stood the pink dressing-table and there the bed, all canopied in pink. In a corner was an important prie-dieu, mahogany and worn green velvet, a crucifix above it; and on the opposite wall hung a large engraving of a picture popular in the eighties, 'Enfin Seuls!' showing a draped and padded drawing-room in which two fashionable lovers clasped each other. Hideous rubbish it was; just such a picture as Madame de Lamouderie would have hanging opposite the crucifix; yet the element of sincerity in the lovers' absorption transcended the frippery, and Graham felt his heart stabbed to a living love once more by the sight of that embrace. He turned away. He followed the long passage. The door yielded to his hand, as it had yielded on the moonlit night. He stood on the threshold of Marthe's room, as he had stood once before, and it was as empty as if she were dead.
Poor, sad, desolate little room, without a trace of magic now, the window opening on the rainy sky. Yet it had signs of the happier past of childhood. On the bed was a faded satin eiderdown; on the chest of drawers a little toilet-set of silver, such as a child might receive on a splendid birthday, carefully laid out; and was that not, in the corner, sitting in its little chair, a faded, smiling, ancient doll? Yes; through all these years of tragedy she had kept her doll to comfort her. Graham's heart almost broke as he looked at it.
