"If there is guilt, I am the guilty one," she said calmly.  "So sorry. I have to lean on you a little. Ah! it's good to be downstairs—and in the air. My doctor's name is Ryland. His address is The Montague, East 44th Street. It's so near—we can get there, I think, in time. You'll tell him—nothing?" 

 "I'll tell him nothing," I echoed. 

 As I put her into the taxi I noticed that she had snapped the emerald back in its setting, and the green snake-eye glinted up harmlessly once more from the limp hand in the torn glove. 

 

 

 EPISODE II 

 THE GREY SISTERHOOD 

 LORD JOHN'S FIRST ADVENTURE IN LOVE 

 When applause forced the curtain up again and again on the last scene of our play—Carr Price's and mine—I wasn't looking at the stage, but at a girl in the opposite box. The box was Roger Odell's, and I was sure that the girl must be his adopted sister Madeleine. But because of the insult she had suffered through my brother, I might not visit the box uninvited. 

 If Grace had been with her husband and sister-in-law there might have been hope. But the wedding had been private, because of Miss Marian Callender's death, and it was not to be supposed that the bride would show herself at the theatre, even as a proof of gratitude to me. I was in Governor Estabrook's box, with him and Carr Price, and the girl whose engagement to Price depended, perhaps, on the success of this night; but I thanked my lucky stars—that I was invited by Grace to dine after the theatre, en famille. 

 "Surely I shall meet Her," I tried to persuade myself.  "She's here with Roger, to show that she bears no grudge against my family. She can't stop away from supper when I'm to be the only guest." 

 This hopeful thought repeated itself in my head whenever I was thwarted by finding my eyes avoided by the girl—the wonderful girl who, with her lily face, and parted blonde hair rippling gold-and-silver lights was like a shining saint. She was so like a saint that I would have staked my life on her being one, which made me more furious than ever with Haslemere. I felt if she would give me one of her white roses lying on the red velvet of the box-rail, it would be worth more to me than the Victoria Cross I was wearing for the first time that night. 

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