atmosphere for children--my children!--to grow up in!"

"If you would do as I wish, and send her where she belongs--"

"I shall not. She is my wife. Moreover, concealment would then be
impossible."

They had reached the third floor. He inserted a key in a door, hesitated
a moment, then said abruptly: "I saw in a paper that _she_ had returned.
Can it be possible?"

"I saw her on the Avenue a few moments ago."

Was it the doctor's imagination, or did the goaded man at his side flash
him a glance of appeal?

They entered a room whose doors and windows were muffled. The furniture
was solid, too solid to be moved except by muscular arms. There were no
mirrors nor breakable articles of any sort.

On the bed lay a woman with ragged hair and sunken yellow face, but even
in her ruin indefinably elegant. Her parted lips were black and
blistered within; her shapely skinny hands clutched the quilt with the
tenacious suggestion of the eagle--that long-lived defiant bird. At the
bedside sat a vigorous woman, the pallor of fatigue on her face.

The creature on the bed opened her eyes. They had once been what are
vaguely known as fine eyes; now they looked like blots of ink on
parchment.