charms, had seemed secure from danger; but Janet recalled her discouragement, her threat to leave the Bagatelle.  Since then there had been something furtive about her.  Now, because that odour of alcohol Lise exhaled had destroyed in Janet the sense of exhilaration, of life on a higher plane she had begun to feel, and filled her with degradation, she hated Lise, felt for her sister no strain of pity.  A proof, had she recognized it, that immorality is not a matter of laws and decrees, but of individual emotions.  A few hours before she had seen nothing wrong in her relationship with Ditmar:  now she beheld him selfish, ruthless, pursuing her for one end, his own gratification.  As a man, he had become an enemy.  Ditmar was like all other men who exploited her sex without compunction, but the thought that she was like Lise, asleep in a drunken stupor, that their cases differed only in degree, was insupportable.

At last she fell asleep from sheer weariness, to dream she was with Ditmar at some place in the country under spreading trees, Silliston, perhaps—­Silliston Common, cleverly disguised:  nor was she quite sure, always, that the man was Ditmar; he had a way of changing, of resembling the man she had met in Silliston whom she had mistaken for a carpenter.  He was pleading with her, in his voice was the peculiar vibrancy that thrilled her, that summoned some answering thing out of the depths of her, and she felt herself yielding with a strange ecstasy in which were mingled joy and terror.  The terror was conquering the joy, and suddenly he stood transformed before her eyes, caricatured, become a shrieking monster from whom she sought in agony to escape....  In this paralysis of fear she awoke, staring with wide eyes at the flickering flame of the lamp, to a world filled with excruciating sound—­the siren of the Chippering Mill!  She lay trembling with the horror of the dream-spell upon her, still more than half convinced that the siren was Ditmar’s voice, his true expression.  He was waiting to devour her.  Would the sound never end?...

Then, remembering where she was, alarmed lest her mother might come in and find her there, she left the sofa, turned out the sputtering lamp, and ran into the bedroom.  Rain was splashing on the bricks of the passage-way outside, the shadows of the night still lurked in the corners; by the grey light she gazed at Lise, who breathed loudly and stirred uneasily, her mouth open, her lips parched.  Janet touched her.

“Lise—­get up!” she said.  “It’s time to get up.”  She shook her.

“Leave me alone—­can’t you?”

“It’s time to get up.  The whistle has sounded.”

Lise heavily opened her eyes.  They were bloodshot.

“I don’t want to get up.  I won’t get up.”

“But you must,” insisted Janet, tightening her hold.  “You’ve got to—­you’ve got to eat breakfast and go to work.”

“I don’t want any breakfast, I ain’t going to work any more.”