proprieties and of the probabilities could never have permitted Henry
Leroux to create.

His visitor kept moistening her dry lips and swallowing, emotionally.

Standing at a discreet distance from her:--

"Madam," began Leroux, nervously.

She waved her hand, enjoining him to silence, and at the same time
intimating that she would explain herself directly speech became
possible. Whilst she sought to recover her composure, Leroux, gradually
forcing himself out of the dreamlike state, studied her with a sort of
anxious curiosity.

It now became apparent to him that his visitor was no more than
twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, but illness or trouble, or both
together, had seared and marred her beauty. Amid the auburn masses of
her hair, gleamed streaks, not of gray, but of purest white. The low
brow was faintly wrinkled, and the big--unnaturally big--eyes were
purple shaded; whilst two heavy lines traced their way from the corner
of the nostrils to the corner of the mouth--of the drooping mouth with
the bloodless lips.

Her pallor became more strange and interesting the longer he studied it;
for, underlying the skin was a yellow tinge which he found inexplicable,
but which he linked in his mind with the contracted pupils of her eyes,
seeking vainly for a common cause.

He had a hazy impression that his visitor, beneath her furs, was most