door!" he said loudly. "She'll have to go back to the factory again." The footman made some remark and the coachman swore angrily.

"I think I see myself standing here two hours!" he growled. "The gray's nervous[Pg 11] as it is. I'm going up through the Park and let them out a little at the other end."

[Pg 11]

The carriage started. The woman half rose in it and tapped imperiously on the glass.

"James! James!" she cried, but no one answered her. She pressed the knob of the door, but it did not turn.

"I can't make him hear?" she complained, "what shall I do? What do you think is the matter—he acts as if there were nobody in the carriage!"

They looked fearfully at each other.

"He will stop surely—somewhere," said the other, but her heart felt chilled. She could not think—she dared not.

They trotted swiftly on; her companion's eyes were fixed ahead of her, her lips moved.

"Hail Mary!" she muttered, and then, "now and at the hour of our death!"

"Don't say that, don't!" she begged the woman, but still the mutterings went on. The door of the carriage swung open; the[Pg 12] horses dropped to a walk. All around were trees and grass; great rocks lined the driveway.

[Pg 12]

"I could slip behind the bushes and my gown would not be noticed," she thought feverishly, "for I cannot bear to hear her," and as the carriage almost halted she swung herself easily down from the low step.

"Now and at the hour of our death!" she heard as the carriage rolled on, and shuddered when the coachman slammed the door upon that pale, crazed creature.

Behind the bushes she was well screened, and the few people that drove and walked through the wild, beautiful woodland never looked in her direction. Once a couple, intertwined and deep in each other's eyes, almost ran against her, but though she drew away, startled and apologizing, they walked on with no reply to her excuses.

Her heart sank strangely.

"I wish they had spoken to me," she whispered to herself. "I wish I could[Pg 13] think better—I know there is something wrong. The next person I meet I will ask——"

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