“Then there is but one thing that will bring back your normal frame of mind, and that is change. I will give you a summer in London and a winter in Paris. I promise that at the end of that time you will marry Quintard.” “Well,” said Hermia, listlessly, “I will think of it.” She was beginning to wish her aunt would go. She had made her more disgusted with life than ever. Mrs. Dykman divined that it was time to leave the girl alone, and rose. She hesitated a moment and then placed her hand on Hermia’s shoulder. “I have had every experience that life offers to women,” she said—and for the first time in Hermia’s knowledge of her those even tones deepened—“every tragedy, every comedy, every bitterness, every joy—_everything_. Therefore, my advice has its worth. There is little in life—make the most of that little when you find it. You are facing a problem that more than one woman has faced before, and you will work it out as other women have done. It was never intended that a life-time of suffering should be the result of one mistake.” Then she gathered her wraps about her and left the room. Shortly after, Hermia drove down to her lawyer’s office and made a will. She left bequests to Helen Simms and Miss Newton, and divided the bulk of her property between Bessie, Miss Starbruck, and Mrs. Dykman. * * * * * CHAPTER XXXVIII. BETWEEN DAY AND NIGHT. Hermia sat by the window waiting for Quintard. It was the saddest hour of the day—that hour of dusk when the lamplighter trudges on his rounds. How many women have sat in their darkening rooms at that hour with their brows against the glass and watched their memories rise and sing a dirge! Even a child—if it be a woman-child—is oppressed in that shadow-haunted land between day and night, for the sadness of the future is on her. It is the hour when souls in their strain feel that the tension must snap; when tortured hearts send their cries through forbidding brains. The sun has gone, the lamps are unlit, the shadows lord and mock until they are blotted out under falling tears. Hermia rose suddenly and left the room. She went into the dining-room and drank a glass of sherry. She wore a black gown, and her face was as wan as the white-faced sky; but in a moment the wine brought color to her lips and cheeks. Then she went into the jungle and lit the lamps. She was standing by one of the date-trees as Quintard entered. As he came up to her he took her hand in both his own, but he did not kiss her; he almost dreaded a renewal of last night’s excitement. Hermia, moreover, was a woman whose moods must be respected; she did not look as if she were ready to be kissed. “Are you ill?” he asked, with a tenderness in his voice which made her set her teeth. “Your eyes are hollow. I am afraid you did not sleep. I”—the dark color coming under his skin—“did not sleep either.”