Margaret, laughing and talking gayly, stood in the door. Fox, looking across at her, experienced a feeling of deep amazement. What an actress a woman can be! It seemed to him that he had dreamed that scene in White’s house, that it was impossible, untrue, a phantasm of his troubled brain. Then, as he watched her, pondering on a woman’s unfathomable moods, he saw a sudden gray whiteness spread over her face like a veil, her eyelids quivered, her lips parted and she swayed. In an instant he had reached her and caught her as she fell. Judge Temple helped him hush the stir it made, and he carried her quietly and swiftly down stairs to a reception room below where he could get help at once. * * * * * Half an hour later Judge Temple took Rose home. “What was it, father?” she asked, as they got into the carriage; “I didn’t see it and I just heard that Margaret fainted. Mrs. O’Neal kept us all dancing, she didn’t want it known.” The judge looked thoughtfully out of the window. He was not thinking of Margaret. “She is better now, they got her home in a little while. I believe White did his best in spite of that scene,” he said; “she has heart disease; the doctor intimated to me that she might go just like that if she keeps this up--but people live a long time with Margaret’s kind of heart trouble; I knew one man who had it for twenty years and finally died of stale cucumbers. A beautiful creature, a very beautiful creature, I’ll admit it!” Rose made an effort, she must learn to hide her heart, she who had never hidden anything! “Father, may I go to her dressmaker?” she asked archly. “No!” he said sharply, “nor walk in her ways--the most extraordinary creature! Jane Allestree tells me there’ll be a divorce, and no wonder!” Rose was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she said, “Gerty said so.” The judge leaned back in his corner and passed his hand over his eyes. “Ah!” he ejaculated and relapsed into silence. XIV ROSE slept but little that night; she tossed instead, trying to still her heart. She had seen Fox but a moment in the throng, but that moment had been enough for her to feel the subtle change in their relations. Her perceptions were delicate, far reaching, exquisitely sensitive. He was not himself, his troubled eye met hers with a confession of sorrow which she could not interpret. Standing outside of his consciousness, unaware of the struggle in his soul, she only saw estrangement, awkwardness, a mute appeal, which seemed to her incapable of explanation unless he loved Margaret and had been trifling with her. The thought made Rose sit up in bed with flaming cheeks.