Laura clung to his arm; it was as though she were in the dark, surrounded by the vague terrors of her girlhood. "And you will always love me, love me, love me?" she whispered. "Sheldon, Sheldon, love me always, always, with all your heart and soul and strength." Tears stood in Corthell's eyes as he answered: "God forgive whoever--whatever has brought you to this pass," he said. And, as if it were a realisation of his thought, there suddenly came to the ears of both the roll of wheels upon the asphalt under the carriage porch and the trampling of iron-shod hoofs. "Is that your husband?" Corthell's quick eye took in Laura's disarranged coiffure, one black lock low upon her neck, the roses at her shoulder crushed and broken, and the bright spot on either cheek. "Is that your husband?" "My husband--I don't know." She looked up at him with unseeing eyes. "Where is my husband? I have no husband. You are letting me remember," she cried, in terror. "You are letting me remember. Ah, no, no, you don't love me! I hate you!" Quickly he bent and kissed her. "I will come for you to-morrow evening," he said. "You will be ready then to go with me?" "Ready then? Yes, yes, to go with you anywhere." He stood still a moment, listening. Somewhere a door closed. He heard the hoofs upon the asphalt again. "Good-by," he whispered. "God bless you! Good-by till to-morrow night." And with the words he was gone. The front door of the house closed quietly. Had he come back again? Laura turned in her place on the long divan at the sound of a heavy tread by the door of the library. Then an uncertain hand drew the heavy curtain aside. Jadwin, her husband, stood before her, his eyes sunken deep in his head, his face dead white, his hand shaking. He stood for a long instant in the middle of the room, looking at her. Then at last his lips moved: "Old girl.... Honey." Laura rose, and all but groped her way towards him, her heart beating, the tears streaming down her face. "My husband, my husband!" Together they made their way to the divan, and sank down upon it side by side, holding to each other, trembling and fearful, like children in the night. "Honey," whispered Jadwin, after a while. "Honey, it's dark, it's dark. Something happened.... I don't remember," he put his hand uncertainly to his head, "I can't remember very well; but it's dark--a little." "It's dark," she repeated, in a low whisper. "It's dark, dark. Something happened. Yes. I must not remember." They spoke no further. A long time passed. Pressed close together, Curtis Jadwin and his wife sat there in the vast, gorgeous room, silent and trembling, ridden with unnamed fears, groping in the darkness. And while they remained thus, holding close by one another, a prolonged and wailing cry rose suddenly from the street, and passed on through the city under the stars and the wide canopy of the darkness.