The music-room came into view. Only Harold and Milton were there, the former leaning against a chair, his face very pale, his collar open, and his mouth moving loosely. "What's the matter?" Milton looked at her anxiously. "There was a little trouble---" Then Harold saw her and, straightening up with an effort, began to speak. "Sult m'own cousin m'own house. God damn common nouveau rish. 'Sult m'own cousin---" "Tom had trouble with Ahearn and Harold interfered," said Milton. "My Lord Milton," cried Evylyn, "couldn't you have done something?" "I tried; I---" "Julie's sick," she interrupted; "she's poisoned herself. Get him to bed if you can." Harold looked up. "Julie sick?" Paying no attention, Evylyn brushed by through the dining-room, catching sight, with a burst of horror, of the big punch-bowl still on the table, the liquid from melted ice in its bottom. She heard steps on the front stairs--it was Milton helping Harold up--and then a mumble: "Why, Julie's a'righ'." "Don't let him go into the nursery!" she shouted. The hours blurred into a nightmare. The doctor arrived just before midnight and within a half-hour had lanced the wound. He left at two after giving her the addresses of two nurses to call up and promising to return at half past six. It was blood-poisoning. At four, leaving Hilda by the bedside, she went to her room, and slipping with a shudder out of her evening dress, kicked it into a corner. She put on a house dress and returned to the nursery while Hilda went to make coffee. Not until noon could she bring herself to look into Harold's room, but when she did it was to find him awake and staring very miserably at the ceiling. He turned blood-shot hollow eyes upon her. For a minute she hated him, couldn't speak. A husky voice came from the bed. "What time is it?" "Noon." "I made a damn fool---" "It doesn't matter," she said sharply. "Julie's got blood-poisoning. They may"--she choked over the words--"they think she'll have to lose her hand." "What?" "She cut herself on that--that bowl." "Last night?" "Oh, what does it matter?" see cried; "she's got blood-poisoning. Can't you hear?" He looked at her bewildered--sat half-way up in bed. "I'll get dressed," he said. Her anger subsided and a great wave of weariness and pity for him rolled over her. After all, it was his trouble, too. "Yes," she answered listlessly, "I suppose you'd better." IV If Evylyn's beauty had hesitated an her early thirties it came to an abrupt decision just afterward and completely left her. A tentative outlay of wrinkles on her face suddenly deepened and flesh collected rapidly on her legs and hips and arms. Her mannerism of drawing her brows together had become an expression--it was habitual when she was reading or speaking and even while she slept. She was forty-six.