your wife said nothing.  When she would see Sylvia Molineaux coming down the street she would wheel my chair into a quiet corner and walk calmly into the house...  One day Sylvia Molineaux spoke of you.  She told me the whole story and in the end she said:  ’I don’t come here altogether to be kind to you ...  I come here to worry her.  You cannot imagine how I hate her!’ The next morning I said to Helen Starratt, ’Did you know that Sylvia Molineaux was a friend of your husband?’ She had to answer me civilly.  There was no other way out.  But after that I said, whenever I could, ‘Sylvia Molineaux tells me this,’ or, ’Sylvia Molineaux tells me that.’  And I would give her the tattle of Fairview...  I know she could have strangled me, because she smiled too sweetly.  But she made no protest, no comment.  She merely walked into the house whenever Sylvia Molineaux appeared.  But it worried her—­yes, almost as much as that black pool from which I had you swimming every morning...  And so it went on until the day after word had come that you had been drowned.  I had not seen Sylvia for some days.  She came down the street at the usual time.  Helen was still up in her room ... the maid had wheeled me out.  She said nothing about what had happened.  But she looked very pale as she opened her book to read to me.  In the midst of all this your wife came out and stood for a moment upon the landing.  We looked up.  She was in black.  I gave one glance at Sylvia.  She closed her book with a bang and suddenly she was on her feet.  ‘Black! Black!’ she cried out in a loud voice.  ‘How can you!’ Your wife grew pale and walked quickly back into the house.  Sylvia’s face was dreadful.  ‘I can’t trust myself to come here again!’ she said, turning on me fiercely.  ’Fancy, she can wear black.  The hussy ... the...’  No, I shall not repeat what else she said...  But when she had finished I caught her hand and I said:  ’Come back and kill her!  Come back and kill her, Sylvia Molineaux!’ She gave a cry and left me.  I have not seen her since.”

He sat staring at the wasted figure before him.  Who would have thought, seeing her in a happier day, that she could quiver with such red-fanged energy!  After all, she was more primitive even than Ginger.  She was like some limpid, prattling stream swollen to sudden fury by a cloudburst of bitterness.

He was recalled from his scrutiny of the terrible figure before him by the sound of her voice, this time dropping into a monologue which held a half-musing quality.  Hilmer was puzzling her a bit.  She could not quite understand why a man accustomed to hew his way without restraint should be possessing his soul in such patience before Helen Starratt’s provocative advances and discreet retreats.  Either she was unable or unwilling to fathom the fascination which a subtle game sometimes held for a man schooled only in elemental approaches toward his goal.  Was he enthralled or confused or merely curious?  And how long would he continue to give his sufferance scope?  How long would he pretend to play the moth to Helen Starratt’s fitful flamings?  Mrs. Hilmer, raising the question, answered it tentatively by a statement that held a curious mixture of hope and fear.