She settled herself in her seat, drawing her furs about her. He was certainly a doddering old figure as he stood there--shrunken in the face, bent in the body, his few white hairs tumbled in the wind. "Your house is very dear to me, Lady Burdon," he went on. "You must believe I act only in your best interests--in what I believe to be--" She nodded to the footman, turned towards her from the box, and the carriage began to move. The tumbler contents bill leapt up with an absurd scurry, somersaulted down to them, and flung itself flat with a ridiculous air of exhaustion. "Tragedy in the House of Lords," she read idly, and drove away. II Lady Burdon drove straight home. She arrived to be apprised she was concerned in the "Tragedy in the House of Lords" that the tumbler bill had brought somersaulting down the street. As the carriage drew up, a maid hurried down the steps and gave her the news: "His lordship"--the girl was scared and breathless--"His lordship, my lady--taken ill in the House of Lords--fell out of his seat in a faint--brought him home in Lord Colwyn's carriage--carried him up-stairs, my lady--fainted or--a doctor is with him, my lady." Lady Burdon wrestled with the confused sentences, staring at the girl, not moving. "Fainted or--" She threw back the rug from about her lap and sprang from the carriage. A newsboy rushing down the street almost ran into her, and she had to stand aside to give him passage. Her eye caught the pink bill fluttering against him where he held it: "Tragedy in the House of Lords." God! The tragedy was here. She ran swiftly up the steps and up the stairs. At the door of Lord Burdon's room terror leapt at her like a live thing so that she staggered back a step and could not turn the handle. "Fainted or--?" She caught her hand to her bosom, her poor heart beat so. She had a vision of him dead, being carried up the steps. There flashed with it a vision that showed him tired after lunch and her saying: "If you knew how elegant you look, lounging there! You ought to go to the House. You never go. You can sleep there;" and he saying, "Right-o, old girl." Sleep there? Had she driven him to die there? Fainted or--? She entered the room. A man wearing a frock-coat stood by the dressing-table. She stared, and stared beyond him to the bed. She put her hand to her throat and strangled out the word "Maurice!" The man turned to her and began to speak. She ran past him and flung herself beside the bed and took Lord Burdon's hand and pressed it to her face. She burst into a terrible sobbing, raining tears upon the hand she held. From the threshold she had seen the eyes open, the faint twist of a smile of greeting upon the white, pained face.