Women have been known to live a lifetime on the joy of one day.  Her eyes fell again on the mantelpiece, on Hagar’s unopened letters.  At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them.  She had seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other, never to be mistaken.  It turned her sick.  Her fingers ran up to the envelope, then drew back.  She felt for an instant that she must take it and open it as she stood there.  What had the writer of that letter to do with George Hagar?  She glanced at the postmark.  It was South Hampstead.  She knew that he lived in South Hampstead.  The voices behind her grew indistinct; she forgot where she was.  She did not know how long she stood there so, nor that Baron, feeling, without reason, the necessity for making conversation, had suddenly turned the talk upon a collision, just reported, between two vessels in the Channel.  He had forgotten their names and where they hailed from—­he had only heard of it, hadn’t read it; but there was great loss of life.  She raised her eyes from the letter to the mirror and caught sight of her own face.  It was deadly pale.  It suddenly began to waver before her and to grow black.  She felt herself swaying, and reached out to save herself.  One hand caught the side of the mirror.  It was lightly hung.  It loosened from the wall, and came away upon her as she wavered.  Hagar had seen the action.  He sprang forward, caught her, and pushed the mirror back.  Her head dropped on his arm.

The young girl ran forward with some water as Hagar placed Mrs. Detlor on the sofa.  It was only a sudden faintness.  The water revived her.  Baron stood dumbfounded, a picture of helpless anxiety.

“I oughtn’t to have driveled about that accident,” he said.  “I always was a fool.”

Mrs. Detlor sat up, pale, but smiling in a wan fashion.  “I am all right now,” she said.  “It was silly of me—­let us go, dear,” she added to the young girl; “I shall be better for the open air—­I have had a headache all morning. * * * No, please, don’t accuse yourself, Mr. Baron, you are not at all to blame.”

“I wish that was all the bad news I have,” said Baron to himself as Hagar showed Mrs. Detlor to a landau.  Mrs. Detlor asked to be driven to her hotel.

“I shall see you this afternoon at the excursion if you are well enough to go,” Hagar said to her.

“Perhaps,” she said with a strange smile.  Then, as she drove away, “You have not read your letters this morning.”  He looked after her for a moment, puzzled by what she said and by the expression on her face.

He went back to the house abstractedly.  Baron was sitting in a chair, smoking hard.  Neither men spoke at first.  Hagar went over to the mantel and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor’s last words.  “You haven’t read your letters this morning,” he repeated to himself.  He glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor.