obscure pasts of many of the women whom she met during those days, women who were now shining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success.  The serene, stately, much-admired Princesse de Chevrille had been a Miss Sommers from Cleveland, Ohio, and she had come to Paris first as a governess.  The beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth, now Aunt Victoria’s favorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men of letters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chanced casually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty about car-fares.  There was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of the glittering vistas down which Sylvia’s quick eye cast involuntary glances.

But inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, there came a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into Sylvia’s consciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entire irrelevance) there flared up the picture of Molly as she had seen her last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil—­then the other picture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody and forever stilled—­and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrous possibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible for credence ...

From that shapeless, looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actually and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering another room, taking up some other occupation.

Just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she was not alone in her fear of this horror.  She was sitting near Austin Page at a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages which Mrs. Marshall-Smith gathered about her.  Part of the ensuing chatter on one of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, on automobiles.  The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth was an expert on such matters, having for some years diverted by an interest in mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted male American.  He was talking incessantly that day of the wonderful improvement in steering mechanism the last few years had brought about.  “I tell you what, Miss Marshall!” he insisted, as though she had disputed the point with him, “I tell you what, there used to be some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, but nowadays any one who doesn’t keep in the road and right side up must be just plain looking for a chance to use his car like a dose of cold poison.”  For a moment Sylvia could not conceive why she felt so sickening a thrust at her heart.  She turned her eyes from the speaker.  They fell on a man’s hand, on the arm of the chair next hers.  It was Austin’s hand and it was shaking uncontrollably.  As she gazed at it, fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket.  She did not look at him.  In a moment he rose and crossed the room.  The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth asked for another petit four, confessing his fondness for chocolate eclairs,—­and embarked upon demountable rims.