Secret--worse than the mere disappointment in losing it--worse even
than a natural sorrow in the defeat of an effort to save life.

For in all her own life Miss Erith had never until that evening
experienced the slightest emotion when looking into the face of any
man.

But from the moment when her brown eyes fell upon the pallid,
dissipated, marred young face turned upward on her knees in the
car--in that instant she had known for the first time a new and
indefinable emotion--vague in her mind, vaguer in her heart--yet
delicately apparent.

But what this unfamiliar emotion might be, so faint, so vague, she
had made no effort to analyse.... It had been there; she had
experienced it; that was all she knew.

It was almost morning before she rose, stiff with cold, and moved
slowly toward her bedroom.

Among the whitening ashes on her hearth only a single coal remained
alive.






CHAPTER III