At the corner of Devonshire House his step, more than half automatically, turned northwards. The season and the summer were both at their midmost, and from this side of the street to that the tide of carriages flowed full. Full, too, were the pavements, human life jostled in a race from wall to wall of the gray houses, and just outside the curbstones, like the scum and flotsam in some cross-movement of tides, moved rows of sandwichmen bearing a various burden of advertisement, from strictly private massage establishments to ballets, the more public the better. But Berkeley Street and the Square following were a back-water of the flooded river-way, and he went with his own volition, not with the dictation of the tides, through into Grosvenor Square. Still without purpose other than that born of habit, he rang the bell of that house he frequented on so many days, and at so many and different hours, and was admitted. Mildred was not in the room when he entered, and he walked up and down with a step of caged violence. It was a room, one would have said, which was lived in by a woman of some individuality. The usual signed photographs, bearing royal and distinguished names, were there; but these, instead of being prominently displayed, were obscurely penned, thick as sheep, on a Louis Seize table in a very dark corner, while on the writing-table which was set in the window were only two--those of Jack and his wife--a highly daring and successful arrangement. Otherwise the room was ordered, one felt, in a certain manner, not that it might be like a hundred other rooms, but because the owner wished it so, and no other way. A huge engagement book lay open on the table, with some names written fully out, but here and there an initial only; half a dozen good prints hung on the walls, but there was no attempt to drape anything, nor were there any books, the literature being limited to a heap of periodicals and a hardly lesser heap of letters. Two Dresden ormolu-mounted birds stood on the chimney-piece, two Tanagra figures in daring contrast, an Empire clock, and a programme of a forthcoming race-meeting. He had not long been in the room when the door of her bedroom, which communicated with it, was opened, and she entered. At a glance she took in his mood, and guessed, too, with absolute certainty of its cause. The things that would make Jack look like that, she knew, could be numbered on the fingers, and of these none but one could have happened. Thus there was one only left, and for the moment she was afraid of what she had done. Outwardly she showed no sign. "What is it?" she asked. Jack did not at once answer, but paused in front of the writing-table where the two photographs stood. Then he took up that of Marie, threw it into the fireplace, and beat it to pieces with the poker.