the trust company, to the occurrence in the automobile and Howard's
triumphant announcement. She had but a vague notion of how that scene had
finished; or of how, limply, she had got to bed. Round and round the
circle she went in each waking period. To have implored him to relinquish
the place had been waste of breath; and then--her reasons? These were the
moments when the current was strongest, when she grew incandescent with
humiliation and pain; when stray phrases in red letters of Brent's were
illuminated. Merit! He had a contempt for her husband which he had not
taken the trouble to hide. But not a business contempt. "As good as the
next man," Brent had said--or words to that effect. "As good as the next
man!" Then she had tacitly agreed to the bargain, and refused to honour
the bill! No, she had not, she had not. Before God, she was innocent of
that! When she reached this point it was always to James Wing that she
clung--the financier, at least, had been impartial. And it was he who
saved her.

At length she opened her eyes to discover with bewilderment that the room
was flooded with light, and then she sprang out of bed and went to the
open window. To seaward hung an opal mist, struck here and there with
crimson. She listened; some one was whistling an air she had heard
before--Mrs. Barclay had been singing it last night! Wheels crunched the
gravel--Howard was going off. She stood motionless until the horse's
hoofs rang on the highroad, and then hurried into her dressing-gown and
slippers and went downstairs to the telephone and called a number.

"Is this Mr. Brent's? Will you say to Mr. Brent that Mrs. Spence would be
greatly, obliged if he stopped a moment at her house before going to
town? Thank you."

She returned to her room and dressed with feverish haste, trying to