She was very pale, even her lips had lost their rich colour, and her eyes had a drawn and heavy look as if she had not slept.  Without looking at her mother-in-law, she went on with her sewing, working buttonholes of exquisite fineness in a small white garment.  In her lap there was a little wicker basket filled with spools of thread and odd bits of lace and cambric; and every now and then she stopped her work and gazed thoughtfully down on it as if she were trying to decide how she might use the jumble of scraps that it contained.

“Gabriella,” said Mrs. Fowler suddenly, after she had watched her a moment, “did anything happen last night?”

“Happen?  No, what could have happened?”

“At what time did George come in?”

“About one o’clock.  I sat up for him.”

“Was—­was anything the matter with him?  Was he in any way different?”

“He was sick.  He was sick all night.”  A look of disgust crossed her face while she stopped to wipe away a drop of blood from her finger.  “I don’t remember pricking my finger since I was a child,” she remarked.

“You are keeping something from me,” said Mrs. Fowler; and sitting down in the small chair by the desk, she leaned her elbow, in her full sleeve of violet cashmere, on the edge of the blotting-pad.  She was wearing a morning gown made, as all her house gowns were made, after the princess style, and Gabriella could see the tight expanse of her bosom rising and falling under a garniture of purple and silver passementerie.  Her hair, fresh from the crimping pins, rose in stiff ridges from her forehead, and her bright red lips were so badly chapped from cold that they cracked a little when she smiled.  She looked as hard as granite though in reality her heart was breaking with pity.

“I want to help you,” she said, “and I can’t if you keep things back.”

“I told you George was sick.  I was up all night with him.”  Again a look of disgust, which she could not control, flickered and died in her face.

“But you oughtn’t to have let him keep you awake.  You need all the sleep you can get.  When he comes in late he must sleep in the spare room across the hall.”

“His things are all in here and he would come in to get them; that would wake me.”

For a moment Mrs. Fowler hesitated while the struggling breath grew more irregular under the passementerie on her bosom.  The ripe colour faded from her cheeks and her lips looked blue in the harsh light from the window.

“I think I’d better speak to George,” she said.  “He is spoiled and he always thinks first of his own comfort.  I suppose it’s the way we brought him up—­but when he understands, he will be more considerate.”

For the first time Gabriella laid down her sewing and, leaning forward in her chair, fixed her eyes, with their look of deep stillness, of wistful expectancy, on the face of her mother-in-law.

“Would you mind telling me if George was ever—­ever wild about women?” she asked, and though her voice was very low and quiet, her words seemed to echo loudly through the hushed suspense in her brain.  It was as if every piece of furniture, every vacant wall, every picture, and every pane of glass, repeated the sound.