“Are you angry with me?”

“I thought I had walked out of a nightmare,” I said.  “I find I’m still in it.”

“But don’t be angry with me.  It was the only way.”

“The only way to, or out of, what?” I asked, bewildered.

“Never mind.”

She looked at me with a singular expression in her slumbrous eyes.  It was sad, wistful, soothing, and gave me the idea of a noble woman making a senseless sacrifice.

“There is no earthly reason to do this on account of Dale,” I protested.

“Dale has nothing to do with it.”

“Then who has?”

“Anastasius Papadopoulos,” she said with undisguised irony.

“I beg your pardon,” I said rather stiffly, “for appearing to force your confidence.  But as I first put the idea of joining your husband into your head and have enjoyed your confidence in the matter hitherto, I thought I might claim certain privileges.”

As she had done before, she laid her hands on my shoulders—­we were alone in the alcove—­and looked me in the eyes.

“Don’t make me cry.  I’m very near it.  And I’m tired to-night, and I’m going to have a hellish time to-morrow.  And I want you to do me a favour.”

“What is that?”

“When I’m seeing my husband, I’d like to know that you were within call—­in case I wanted you.  One never knows what may happen.  You will come won’t you, if I send for you?”

“I’m always at your service,” I said.

She released my shoulders and grasped my hand.

“Good-night,” she said, abruptly, and rushed swiftly out of the room, leaving me wondering more than I had ever wondered in my life at the inscrutable ways of women.

CHAPTER XIV

I am glad I devoted last night and the past hour this morning to bringing up to date this trivial record, for I have a premonition that the time is rapidly approaching when I shall no longer have the strength of will or body to continue it.  The little pain has increased in intensity and frequency the last few days, and though I try to delude myself into the belief that otherwise I am as strong as ever, I know in my heart that I am daily growing weaker, daily losing vitality.  I shall soon have to call in a doctor to give me some temporary relief, and doubtless he will put me to bed, feed me on slops, cut off alcohol, forbid noise and excitement, and keep me in a drugged, stupefied condition until I fall asleep, to wake up in the Garden of Prosperpine.  Death is nothing; it is the dying that is such a nuisance.  It is going through so much for so little.  It is as bad as the campaign before a parliamentary election.  It offends one’s sense of proportion.  In a well-regulated universe there would be no tedious process of decay, either before or after death.  You would go about your daily avocation unconcerned and unwarned, and then at the moment appointed by an