Again and again the little sentences fell upon her mind, until its surface stirred against reiteration, as one, thoroughly understanding, resents repeated explanations.... It was right now for her to go. She had been rebellious and headstrong to conjure such evils about the name of a famous physician. The world called him famous. Only she and Madame Nestor had stood apart, clutching fast to their ideas of his deviltry. He had taken the trouble to call her to him--to prove that he was good. The degradation which she had felt at the first moment of his summons--was all from her own perversity.... Clearly she saw the street below, Cathedral Way; a turn north, then across the Plaza to the brown ornate entrance of _The Maidstone_.... There was no formality about the going. Her hat and coat had not been removed.... She was in the hall; the elevator halted at her floor while the man pushed a letter and some papers under the door of the Selma Cross apartment.... In the street, she turned across the Plaza from Cathedral Way to _The Maidstone_. The real Paula Linster marshalled a hundred terrible protests, but her voice was muffled, her strength ineffectual as Josephine's beating with white hands against the Emperor's iron door. Real volition was locked in the pitiless will of the physician, to whom she hastened as one hoping to be saved. She inquired huskily of the man at the hotel-desk. "The Doctor is waiting on the parlor-floor--in F," was the answer. Paula stepped from the elevator, and was directed to the last door on the left.... The sense of her need, of her illness, hurried her forward through the long hall. Sometimes she seemed burdened with the body of a woman, very tired and helpless, but quite obedient.... The figure "F" on a silver shield filled her eyes. The door was ajar. Her entrance was not unlike that of a lioness goaded with irons through a barred passage into an arena. She did not open the door wider, but slipped through sideways, gathering her dress closely about her.... Bellingham was there. His face was white, rigid from long concentration; yet he smiled and his arms were opened to her.... The point here was that he so marvelously understood. His attitude to her seemed that of a physician of the soul. She could not feel the fighting of the real woman.... Dazed and broken for the moment, she encountered the soothing magnetism of his hands. "How long I have waited!" he quietly exclaimed. "Hours, and it was bitter waiting--but you are a wreath for my waiting--how grateful you are to my weariness!... Paula Linster, Paula Linster--what deserts of burning sunshine I have crossed to find you--what dark jungles I have searched for such fragrance!"