He commenced to cough, and very soon further speech was impossible. He was painfully exhausted. She sat by his side until he went off to sleep. Of his hopeless state there could no longer be any doubt. He was wasted almost to a shadow. Even in sleep his breath came heavily, and a fever seemed upon him. She stole softly from his side, and stood for a few minutes at the window, looking out. Below, the pulse of the great world was beating with the same maddening regularity. The stream of wayfarers swept on, the roar of traffic was as inevitable as the waves of the sea. She stood by the window with small, clenched hands. Behind her, his loud breathing seemed to beat out the time toward Death. * * * * * Deane himself was one of those wayfarers, but at least his thoughts, as he was being whirled eastward in his brougham, were fixed upon the tragedy which he had left behind him. He knew very well that it was not a question of months but of days with Basil Rowan. Was it only for that that the girl was waiting? Her whole attitude towards him had about it a certain flavor of mystery which oppressed him. It was like trying to face an enemy hidden in a darkened room, listening for his footstep, not knowing whence the blow might fall. Notwithstanding the warm sunshine, he shivered a little as he descended from the carriage and entered his offices. CHAPTER V MUTUAL INFORMATION The girl was sitting in the middle of a hard horsehair sofa, her elbows upon her knees, her head resting in her hands. She looked across the dreary apartment and out of the ill-cleaned windows, with dull, despairing eyes. This, then, was to be the end of her dreams. She must go back to the life which she felt to be intolerable, or she must throw herself headlong into the maelstrom. There was one other occupant of the room, and, curiously enough, his attitude appeared to be a somewhat similar one. He was a short, thick-set young man, with brown moustache, flashily dressed, with a red tie, an imitation diamond, and soiled linen to further disfigure an appearance at no time particularly prepossessing. He was standing with his legs a little apart, looking out into the uninspiring street. His hands were thrust deep down into the pockets of his trousers. He had all the appearance of a man who finds the burden of life an unwelcome thing. Presently he began to whistle, not cheerfully, but some doleful air of sentimental import. The girl upon the couch seemed irritated. She herself was in the last stage of dejection, and the sound grew maddening. "Oh, don't do that, please!" she exclaimed at last. He turned around in amazement, for the first time realizing that he was not alone. "I beg your pardon," he said. The girl remembered that he was a stranger to her, but after all, what did it matter? "I asked you to stop whistling," she said.