And so she awaited the coming of her life's happiness. She had little to do, and passed many happy hours in imagining how he would rush in--by yonder passage--through this very door--tall and slender and impassioned and press her to his wildly throbbing heart. And ever again, though she knew it to be a foolish dream, did she see the blue white golden scarf upon his chest and the blue and gold cap upon his blond curls. Lonely widows--even those of the divorced variety--find friends and ready sympathy in the land of good hearts. But Antonie avoided everyone who sought her society. Under the ban of her great secret purpose she had ceased to regard men and women except as they could be turned into the instruments of her will. And her use for them was over. As for their merely human character and experience--Toni saw through these at once. And it all seemed to her futile and trivial in the fierce reflection of those infernal fires through which she had had to pass. Adorned like a bride and waiting--thus she lived quietly and modestly on the means which her divorced husband--in order to keep his own head above water--managed to squeeze out of the business. Suddenly her father died. People said that his death was due to unconquerable rage over her folly.... She buried him, bearing herself all the while with blameless filial piety and then awoke to the fact that she was rich. She wrote to her beloved: "Don't worry another day. We are in a position to choose the kind of life that pleases us." He wired back: "Expect me to-morrow." Full of delight and anxiety she ran to the mirror and discovered for the thousandth time, that she was beautiful again. The results of poisoning had disappeared, crime and degradation had burned no marks into her face. She stood there--a ruler of life. Her whole being seemed sure of itself, kindly, open. Only the wild glance might, at times, betray the fact that there was much to conceal. She kept wakeful throughout the night, as she had done through many another. Plan after plan passed through her busy brain. It was with an effort that she realised the passing of such grim necessities. Chapter VIII. A bunch of crysanthemums stood on the table, asters in vases on dresser and chiffonier--colourful and scentless. Antonie wore a dress of black lace that had been made by the best dressmaker in the city for this occasion. In festive array she desired to meet her beloved and yet not utterly discard the garb of filial grief. But she had dressed the child in white, with white silk stockings and sky-blue ribands. It was to meet its father like the incarnate spirit of approaching happiness.