different from all that had preceded it.

She was at this time only twenty-six, and in the zenith of her beauty.
Every one supposed that the man to whom she owed her ruin would marry
her as soon as it was possible. Unfortunately, he died before the decree
_nisi_ was made absolute. Mrs. Chepstow's future had been committed to
the Fates, and they had turned down their thumbs.

Notorious, lovely, now badly off, still young, she was left to shift for
herself in the world.

It was then that there came to the surface of her character a trait that
was not beautiful. She developed a love of money, a passion for material
things. This definite greediness declared itself in her only now that
she was poor and solitary. Probably it had always existed in her, but
had been hidden. She hid it no longer. She tacitly proclaimed it, and
she ordered her life so that it might be satisfied.

And it was satisfied, or at the least for many years appeased. She
became the famous, or the infamous, Mrs. Chepstow. She had no child to
be good for. Her father was dead. Her mother lived in Brussels with some
foreign relations. For her English relations she took no thought. The
divorce case had set them all against her. She put on the panoply of
steel so often assumed by the woman who has got into trouble. She defied
those who were "down upon her." She had made a failure of one life. She
resolved that she would make a success of another. And for a long time
she was very successful. Men were at her feet, and ministered to her
desires. She lived as she seemed to desire to live, magnificently. She
was given more than most good women are given, and she seemed to revel
in its possession. But though she loved money, her parents' traits were