Fox was watching the slow progress of an important bill through the lower House, and busily engaged at the same moment on the Naval Appropriation Bill in which White was intimately concerned, and which offered a wide scope for the surmises of those who were watching the two men. It was an open question whether Fox intended to thwart the Secretary of the Navy or to support his effort to get a larger appropriation. Conscious of the scrutiny to which he was subjected, Fox worked on, with an enigmatical smile, and betrayed nothing of his thoughts or his position. It was late one Thursday afternoon and he had been speaking on an important matter for more than an hour, endeavoring to close up a question which threatened to be of international significance, and, thoroughly fagged, he finally left the floor of the House amid a tremendous outburst of applause. As usual the galleries had been packed to hear him, and he managed to make his way out with many delays, stopped on all sides by members and personal friends, eager to congratulate him on another great speech. Once out of the lobby, he was crossing the corridor on his way to a committee-room when he heard his name spoken, and turned, to see Margaret detach herself from a party of fashionables who had been in the Diplomatic Gallery, and come toward him. As they met he was immediately aware of the change in her that a few weeks of absence had made sharply apparent. She was extremely pale and her eyes seemed abnormally large and shining under the brim of her immense picture hat, her elaborate dress only accentuating the slightness of her figure. She held out her hand without smiling. “I want to speak to you,” she said, almost with an air of command, “where can we go?” He turned, hesitating a moment as to some suitable spot, arrested by the thought that Margaret’s presence there or anywhere, alone with him, would be so much fuel to the fire. But she solved the problem for him. “Come outside,” she said; “it’s heavenly on the terrace, the sun is setting. Besides, I can’t breathe here in these corridors--heavens, where do they get their tobacco?” “Not where you buy your Egyptians,” Fox laughed. She shrugged her shoulders. “The doctor says I mustn’t smoke any more,” she said, “but I shall.” “The doctor?” Fox cast a startled glance at her white face; “what’s the matter, Margaret?” “A cigarette heart, I suppose!” she replied laughing, and then as the smile died on her lips an expression of dull misery fell like a veil over her features.