“Mr. Rivers won’t be such a fool as to come to this house, I should hope!” Egidia exclaimed angrily, and her use of the formal prefix alone showed how angry she was. “He knows what a piece of folly that would be, even if you don’t!” “He will come this time, Egidia. Don’t be cross with me, or you will perhaps be sorry afterwards. Egidia, I want to thank you--I want you to forgive me for all the trouble I have caused you--the annoyance I have subjected you to. And I know you have done your best for me--about Jane Anne Cawthorne, I mean--but--but I have settled it another and a shorter way, you see.... Edmund!---- ” She rose from her sofa as Rivers came in, and it was then that the sceptical Egidia noticed for the first time how weak she seemed to be, and realised that it was not all acting, and that the young woman had really gone through some veritable emotion. She looked as if a mighty wind had blown her, tossed her, and had scattered all her energies. “Edmund!” she was saying, in a faint voice, her fingers clutching the lapel of his coat. “Edmund! You did come! I knew you would. And I don’t mind now--Dying is the only way to make you nice to me.” “You should not have come here,” said Egidia to Edmund, quite violently, in her anger and bewilderment. Even now, she found it quite impossible to take Phœbe Elles seriously; she had cried “Wolf” so often, that the very accents and circumstance of tragedy in her connection inevitably suggested farce, or at any rate drawing-room comedy. “Mrs. Elles sent me an urgent telegram, bidding me come here at once on a matter of life and death,” said Rivers simply, “so of course I came.” “It is a matter of death,” Mrs. Elles said, tottering back to the sofa. “Listen, both of you. I have done this because I was so miserable, and my life seemed of no use to any one--rather the reverse, in fact. I saw so well, that if I lived, I should live only to disgrace you, Edmund. People have explained to me what it was that I should be doing to you, injuring you, preventing you from ever being President, forcing you to live abroad, and ruining you generally. I saw the thought in your eyes that last time that I was with you, and that you almost hated me--I represented disgrace and shame to you! Oh, don’t deny it! I am quite sure that you do not love me, or you would have loved through it all, and been willing to go through it all gladly for the sake of getting me. Men do--some men! So I took the only way--I took poison!” She allowed herself to fall back exhausted. “Tchk! Tchk!” came from Edmund or Egidia. The Nemesis of Pose still pursued her votary. They neither of them believed in her. “Now look here, Phœbe!” said Egidia, speaking to her severely, as to a spoilt child. “Look here! What tricks have you been playing with yourself? I insist on knowing.” “And I want to tell you,” Mrs. Elles replied plaintively, “if only you would let me! I never thought people treated--people like me--like this! It isn’t even kind.”