over those interminable miles of pavement.  There was little of her then that was not cold, weary, wet flesh, suffering all the discomforts that an animal can know.  She counted her steps for a long time, and became so stupidly absorbed in this that she made a wrong turning and was blocks out of her way before she noticed her mistake.  This mishap reduced her almost to tears, and it was when she was choking them weakly back and setting herself again to the cruel long vista of the Champs-Elysees that an automobile passed her at top speed with a man’s face pressed palely to the panes.  Almost at once the car stopped in answer to a shouted command; it whirled about and bore down on her.  Felix Morrison sprang out and ran to her with outstretched arms, his rich voice ringing through the desolation of the rain and the night—­“Sylvia!  Sylvia!  Are you safe?”

He almost carried her back to the car, lifted her in.  There were wraps there, great soft, furry, velvet wraps which he cast about her, murmuring broken ejaculations of emotion, of pity, of relief—­“Oh, your hands, how cold!  Sylvia, how could you?  Here, drink this!  I’ve been insane,—­absolutely out of my mind!  Let me take off your hat—­Oh, your poor feet—­I was on my way to—­I was afraid you might have—­Oh, Sylvia, Sylvia, to have you safe!” She tried to bring to mind something she had intended to remember; she even repeated the phrase over to herself, “It was an ugly, ugly thing to have married Molly,” but she knew only that he was tenderness and sheltering care and warmth and food and safety.  She drew long quivering breaths like a child coming out of a sobbing fit.

Then before there was time for more thought, the car had whirled them back to the door, where Aunt Victoria, outwardly calm, but very pale, stood between the concierge and his wife, looking out into the rainy deserted street.

At the touch of those warm embracing arms, at that radiant presence, at the sound of that relieved, welcoming voice, the nightmare of the Pantheon faded away to blackness....

Half an hour later, she sat, fresh from a hot bath, breathing out delicately a reminiscence of recent violet water and perfumed powder; fresh, fine under-linen next her glowing skin; shining and refreshed, in a gown of chiffon and satin; eating her first mouthful of Yoshido’s ambrosial soup.

“Why, I’m so sorry,” she was saying.  “I went out for a walk, and then went further than I meant to.  I’ve been over on the left bank part of the time, in Notre Dame and the Pantheon.  And then when I started to come home it took longer than I thought.  It’s so apt to, you know.”

“Why in the world, my dear, did you walk home?” cried Aunt Victoria, still brooding over her in pitying sympathy.

“I’d—­I’d lost my purse.  I didn’t have any money.”

“But you don’t pay for a cab till you come to the end of your journey!  You could have stepped into a taxi and borrowed the money of the concierge here.”