"I do need sleep," she said, with a faint smile. "I do need it dreadfully badly. But about my boxes, Marjorie dear. I only had one, and I have forgotten all about it, I'm afraid. I suppose it's at the station or somewhere. Joseph led us straight from the station to the theatre." "The theatre! You've been to the theatre to-night! Before coming here! Are you mad, Mary?" Marjorie's face had grown quite white, her voice was shrill in its horror and incredulity. What could her cousin mean? Did she actually assert that two days after her brother's funeral she had gone to a theatre with a strange man, and kept the whole household in Berkeley Square in a state of suspense, while she did this dreadful thing? "I can't explain, dear," Mary answered, in a tired voice. "But you will know all about it to-morrow. It is not as you think. And now I will really go to bed." She kissed her astonished cousin, and, with a faint smile, left the boudoir under convoy of the French maid. After her last prayer--for her whole life was one long prayer--she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, but not before she had sent a certain note.... There was but little sleep for Marjorie that night. The hour was not late for her, it was not yet one o'clock, and night after night in the season she would dance till dawn. But the girl was stirred and frightened to the depths of her rather shallow nature by the things which she had heard from Mary. The deep solemnity and utter reality of Mary's words were full of a sort of terror to Marjorie. They came into her gay, thoughtless and sheltered life with unwelcome force and power. She wanted to hear no such things. Life was happy and splendid for her always. It was one continual round of pleasure, and no day of it had palled as yet. There was nothing in the world that she might wish for that she could not have. Her enormous wealth, her beauty, social position, and personal fascination brought all men to her feet. And incense was sweet in her nostrils! Heart-whole, she loved to be adored. Religion was all very well, of course. All nice people went to church on Sunday morning. It was _comme il faut_, and then one walked in the Park afterwards for church parade, and met all one's friends. Every Sunday Marjorie and Lady Kirwan attended the fashionable ritualistic church of St. Elwyn's, Mayfair. The vicar, the Honorable and Reverend Mr. Persse, was a great friend of Marjorie's, and she and her mother had given him three hundred pounds only a few weeks ago for the wonderful new altar frontals worked by the Sisters of Bruges. But Mary's religion! Ah, that was a very different thing. It was harsh, uncomely, unladylike even. And what did this preposterous business about "Joseph" mean? Marjorie had seen the paper, and could make nothing of it. And then the theatre! Mary was making fun of her. She could not really have meant--