The fuse of the electric light in the dining room burned out, and dinner proceeded with only the illumination of the silk-hooded candles. In the subdued glow Meta Beggs was infinitely attractive. His wife's place was empty. Miss Beggs had brought apologetic word from Emmy that she felt too weak to leave her room. A greater degree of comfort possessed August Turnbull than he had experienced for months. With no one at the table but the slim woman on the left and himself a positive geniality radiated from him. He pressed her to have more champagne--he had ordered that since she preferred it to Rhine wine--urged more duckling, and ordered the butler to leave the brandy decanter before them. She laughed--a rare occurrence--and imitated, for his intense amusement, Mrs. Frederick Rathe's extreme cutting social manner. He drank more than he intended, and when he rose his legs were insecure. He made his way toward Meta Beggs. She stood motionless, her thin lips like a thread of blood on her tense face. “What a wife you'd make!” he muttered. There was a discreet cough at his back, and swinging about he saw a maid in a white starched cap and high cuffs. “Excuse me, sir,” she said; “Mrs. Turnbull wants to know would you please come up to her room.” He swayed slightly, glowering at her with a hot face in which a vein throbbed persistently at his temple. Miss Beggs had disappeared. “Very well,” he agreed heavily. Mounting the stairs he fumbled for his cigar case, and entered the chamber beyond his, clipping the end from a superlative perfecto. Emmy was in bed, propped up on a bank of embroidered pillows. A light from one side threw the shadow of her head on a wall in an animated caricature of life. “I didn't want to disturb you, August.” Her voice was weak and apologetic. He stood irritably beside her. “It's hot in here.” His wife at once detected whatever assaulted his complete comfort. She fell into a silence that strained his patience to the utmost. When at last she spoke it was in a tone of voice he had never heard from her--impersonal, with at the same time a note of fear like the flutter of a bird's wing. “The doctor has been here two or three times lately. I didn't want to bother you, and he said----” She broke off, and her hand raised from her side in a gesture of seeking. He held it uncomfortably, wishing that the occasion would speedily end. “August, I've--I've got to leave you.” He did not comprehend her meaning, and stood stupidly looking down at her spent face. “I'm going to die, August, almost any time now. I wanted to tell you first when we were quietly together; and then Louise and Bernard must know.”