This suggestion of frightful things endured was more lamentable by contrast with the shining sleekness, the drenched splendor of her attire. Ransome saw that her clothes helped to build up the impression of her strangeness. Violet was dressed as his wife, at the most frenzied height of her extravagance, had never dressed, as even Mercier's wife could not have dressed, nor yet his mistress. The black satin coat and gown that clung to her body like a sheath showed flawless, though they streamed with rain; the lace at her throat, the black velvet hat with the raking plume that had once been yellow, the design and quality of the flat bag slung on her arm were details that belonged (and Ransome knew it) to a world that was not his nor Mercier's either. And as he took them in he conceived from them an abominable suspicion. His eyes must have conveyed his repulsion, for she spoke as if answering them. "You mustn't mind my clothes. They're done for." She looked down, self-pitying, at her poor slippered feet standing in a pool of rain. "I'm making such a mess of your nice hall." A little laugh shook in her throat and turned into a fit of coughing. He saw how instantly one hand went to her mouth and pressed there while the other struggled blindly, frantically, with the opening of her bag. "What is it?" "My hanky--" She coughed the words out. It, the childish word, moved him to a momentary compassion. "Here you are." She stepped back from him as she stretched out her arm; then she turned and leaned against the wall, hiding her face and muffling her cough in Ransome's pocket handkerchief. Each gesture, each surreptitious and yet frantic effort at suppression, showed her a creature that some brute had beaten, had terrified and cowed. The old Violet would have come swinging up the path; she would have pushed past him into the warm and lighted room; this one had come creeping to his door. She took no step to which he did not himself invite her. "Come in here a minute," he said. He put his hand upon her arm to guide her. He led her into the warm room and drew up a chair for her before the fire. "Sit down and get warm." She shook her head; and by that sign he conceived the hope that she would soon be gone. She looked after him as he went to the door of the room to close it. When she heard the click of the latch her cough burst out violently and ceased. She crouched down by the hearth, holding out her hands to the blaze. He stood against the chimney-piece, looking down at her, silent, not knowing what he might be required to say. She peeled off the wet gloves that were plastered to her skin; she drew out the long pins from her hat, took it off, and gazed ruefully at the lean plume lashed to its raking stem. With the coquetry of pathos, she held it out to him. "Look at me poor feather, Ranny," she said. He shuddered as she spoke his name. "You'd better take your shoes off, and that coat," he said.