It was all very well to be abandoned and deserted; when your time came you could expect nothing else, and must resign yourself to fate--but to be stormed at and flung off, to be kicked out as if you were a burglar, to be despised and spat upon like the lowest woman in the streets--oh, that was too much! She must do something to be revenged on him. And even if such a revenge would no longer affect him, that didn't matter. He should at least be convinced that he was to blame for everything. When she was wallowing in that mire of which he had formerly expressed so much horror on her account--when she was there ... Yes, something must be done, now, at once--some suicidal act which would make her worthy of the gross treatment she had received at his hands--something to free her from these torments, these horrible torments! Her heart hung in her breast like a painful tumour. She could have outlined it with her finger, it felt so sharply prominent. It was as if some claw held it in its clutch. And then again the vultures occurred to her--the vultures crouching on the rocks in Kellermann's picture. They were crouching to spring on Lilly Czepanek. Whom else? Ah, now she had it! The thought flashed through her brain like an arrow. She called a cab and drove quickly to Herr Kellermann's house. She ran up the stairs, which little more than eight months ago she had descended, steeped in bliss, at Richard's side. She stood in the unaired, dark ante-room with its fusty smell, and knocked with a faltering hand at the studio door. Herr Kellermann sat on the floor in his tartan socks and down-at-heel slippers making coffee, as on her first visit. He had a rather bloated look, but seemed pleased with himself. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, drawing the collar of his night-shirt together. "What brings you hither, lovely goddess, so suddenly? Have your setting suns been rising again?" She said nothing, but laid her hat and cloak on a chair and began to unfasten her blouse. She looked round for a screen, but there wasn't one, for the models who frequented this studio were not generally troubled with shyness. He sprang up and stared hard at her. Then, when he understood what she intended to do, he burst into a sudden shout of joy. "What did I say? Wasn't I right? Ha, ha! It has come to that, has it? We are crying aloud for release. We want to be set free, eh?" "I am not crying aloud for anything," said Lilly. "Kindly turn your eyes the other way till necessary," The corners of her mouth curled in scorn. He seized the picture, blew the dust off it adjusted his easel, laughing and chuckling to himself. "I knew she'd come. I said she'd come!" Lilly fumbled at the strings and buttons of her garments. Then she slowly cast them from her one by one. Thus she stood, in the garish light of the studio, pricked by a thousand needles of shame, and exposed her unclothed body to the artist's gloating gaze. * * * * *