Reuben broke the silence for the first time. “No, not at all.” She smiled, then holding back the red drapery with her hand, looked out into the night. The November air was damp, warm, and filled full of a yellow haze which any but a Londoner would have called a fog. Across the yard and a half of garden which divided the house from the street, she could see the long deserted thoroughfare with its double line of lamps, their flames shining dull through the mist. Reuben watched her. The clear curve of the lifted arm, the beautiful lines of the half-averted face stirred his already excited senses. “Judith!” She turned her face, with its almost ecstatic look, towards him, letting fall the curtain. There were some chrysanthemums like snowflakes in her bodice, scarcely showing against the white, and as she turned, Reuben bent towards her and laid his hand on them. “I am going to commit a theft,” he said, and his low voice shook a little. Judith yielded, passive, rapt, as his fingers fumbled with the gold pin. It was like a dream to her, a wonderful dream, with which the whirling maze of dancers, the heavy scents, the delicious music were inextricably mingled. And mingling with it also was a strange, harsh sound in the street outside, which, faint and muffled at first, was growing every moment louder and more distinct. Reuben had just succeeded in releasing the flowers from their fastening; but he held them loosely, with doubtful fingers, realizing suddenly what he had done. Judith shivered, vaguely conscious of a change in the moral atmosphere. The noise in the street was very loud, and words could be distinguished. “What is it they are saying?” he cried, dropping the flowers, springing to the aperture, and pulling back the curtain. Outside the house stood a dark figure, a narrow crackling sheet flung across one shoulder. A voice mounted up, clear in discordance through the mist: “Death of a Conservative M.P.! Death of the member for St. Baldwin’s!” “Ah, what is it?” Cold, white, trembling, she too heard the words, and knew that they were her sentence. He turned towards her; on his face was the look of a man who has escaped a great danger. “Poor Ronaldson is dead. It has come suddenly at the last. No doubt I shall find a telegram at home.” He spoke in his most every-day tones, but he did not look at her. She summoned all her strength, all her pride: “Then I suppose you will be going down there to-morrow?” Her voice never faltered. “No; in any case I must wait till after the funeral.” He looked down stiffly. It was she who kept her presence of mind. “Don’t you want to buy a paper and to tell Adelaide?” “If you will excuse me. Where shall I leave you?” “Oh, I will stop here. The dance is just over.” He moved off awkwardly; she stood there white and straight, and never moving. At her feet lay her own chrysanthemums, crushed by Reuben’s departing feet. She picked them up and flung them into the street.