In the darkness of the night, the pallid face of Athena's husband rose before her,--cruel, watchful, streaked, as it so often was when Richard looked her way, with contempt as well as hatred. How amazingly Richard had altered in the ten years she had known him, and in nothing more than in the expression of his face, which she now visioned with such horrible vividness! In old days Richard Maule had had a handsome, dreamy, placid face,--the kind of profile which looks to great advantage on a cameo or medal. Now, as Athena often told herself, it was the face of a suffering devil, and of a devil, alas! who looked as if he would never die. But the days when she had measured anxiously the span of Richard's life were past. Athena, now, could not afford to wait for her husband's death; she must find some other way to freedom. There was a story which had remained imprinted for two years--or was it three?--on the tablets of Mrs. Maule's memory, and this was the more strange, the more significant, because she had not come across the case in any direct way. All she could remember of the affair--luckily she had a very good memory for such things--had been told her by a certain Mrs. Stanwood, who was noted for her extraordinary knowledge of other people's business, and for whom Athena had never had any particular liking. But now the idle words of this casual acquaintance became tremendously significant, pregnant with vital issues. She sat up in the darkness and pressed her hands against her face in her effort to recapture every word of what had been at the time so unimportant a piece of gossip. The story had been told her at Ranelagh. She could still see the low-ceilinged entrance hall where the eagerly whispered words had been uttered. They were standing together, Athena and Maud Stanwood, waiting for the rest of their party, when there had swept by them a pretty, well-dressed, tired-looking woman. Suddenly, a man had come forward and the two for a moment met face to face. Then, with a muttered word of apology, the man passed on. Mrs. Stanwood clutched Athena's arm. "Do look at them!" she whispered. "How very dramatic! I wonder if this is the first time they have met since the case!" And Athena obediently stared at the pretty, tired-looking woman; the man had disappeared. "Who is she? Who are they? What case do you mean?" she asked. And the other answered provokingly, "Surely you remember all about it?" "But I don't remember. Please tell me? Was it a divorce case?" Athena spoke a little pettishly. "Divorce? Oh, _no_! Something quite different. Why, if she had been divorced she would not be here. No, no; their marriage was annulled. The case made quite a talk because they had been married so long--I believe fourteen years. I was at the wedding. She was such a pretty bride. Of course she married again--the other man. But it's rather bad taste of her to come here now, for she used to be here a good deal with him--I mean with her first husband."