Geraldine sat very still, her mouth resting on her white wrist, and when she lifted her head the marks of her teeth showed on the skin.  Then the other hand, clutching the arm of her chair, fell to her side cramped and quivering; she stood up, looked at the fire, pressed both palms across her eyes, turned and began to pace the room.

To and fro she moved, slowly, quickly, as the craving for motion ebbed or increased.  At times she made unconscious movements with her arms, now flinging them wide, now flexing the muscles, clenching the hands; but always the arms fell helpless, hopeless; the slim, desperate fingers relaxed; and she moved on again, to and fro, up and down, turning her gaze toward the clock each time she passed it.

In her eyes there seemed to be growing a dreadful sort of beauty; there was fire in them, the luminous brightness of the tortured.  On both cheeks a splendid colour glowed and waned; the slightly drawn lips were vivid.

But this—­all of it changed as the slow minutes dragged their course; into the brown eyes crept the first frosty glimmer of desperation; colour faded from the face, leaving it snowy white; the fulness of the lips vanished, the chin seemed to grow pointed, and under the eyes bluish shadows deepened.  It promised to go hard with her that night; it was already going very badly.  She knew it, and digging her nails into her delicate palms, set her teeth together and drew a deep, unsteady breath.

She had looked at the clock four times, and the hands seemed to have moved no more than a minute’s space across the dial; and once more she turned to pace the floor.

Her lips had lost almost all their colour now; they moved, muttering tremulous incoherences; the outline of every feature grew finer, sharper, more spiritual, but dreadfully white.

Later she found herself on her knees beside the couch, face buried in the cushions, her small teeth marking her wrist again—­heard herself crying out for somebody to help her—­yet her lips had uttered no sound; it was only her soul in its agony, while the youthful, curved body and rigid limbs burnt steadily in hell’s own flames.

Again she raised her head and lifted her white face toward the clock.  Only a minute had crept by, and she turned, twisting her interlocked hands, dry-eyed, dry lips parted, and stared about her.  Half stupefied with pain, stunned, dismayed by the million tiny voices of temptation assailing her, dinning in her senses, she reeled where she knelt, fell forward, laid her slender length across the hearth-rug, and set her teeth in her wrist again, choking back the cry of terror and desolation.

And there her senses tricked her—­or she may have lost consciousness—­for it seemed that the next moment she was on the stairs, moving stealthily—­where?  God and her tormented body seemed to know, for she caught herself halfway down the stairs, cried out on her Maker for strength, stood swaying, breathless, quivering in the agony of it—­and dragged herself back and up the stairs once more, step by step, to the landing.