And her only redemption now, she told herself, was to continue along that course in a manner which would lend dignity, perhaps even the glorified dignity of tragedy itself, to what must otherwise be a squalid and sordid life. Since she was in the stream, she must strike out for the depths, not cringe and whimper among the shallows. By daring and adventuring, audaciously, to the uttermost, that at least could still lend a sinister radiance to her wrong-doing. That alone could make excuse for those whimpering and snivelling sensibilities which would not keep to the kennel of her heart. Yet it was only the flesh that was weak and faltering, she argued—and in an abstracted moment she remembered how even a greater evil-doer than she herself had buoyed her will to endure great trial. “_That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold_,” she repeated to herself, inspirationally, as she remembered the small medicine-flask of cognac which she carried in her toilet bag. She hated the thought of it, and the taste of it,—but more than all she hated the future into which she dare no longer look. As she medicined her cowardice with the liquor she could not help marvelling at the seeming miracle, for, minute by minute, with each scalding small draught, her weak-heartedness ebbed away. She knew that later there would be stern exaction for that strength, but she had her grim work to do, and beggars can not always be choosers. Then she gathered up her veil and hat and gloves, and once more made ready for her day’s enterprise. The pith-ball had passed from its period of revulsion to its period of attraction. CHAPTER XXI Frances Candler’s fingers trembled a little at the Guilford office desk as she took out her card and penciled beneath her name: “Representing the Morning Journal.” She knew that Sunset Bryan’s success on the circuit, his midnight prodigalities, his bewildering lavishness of life, and his projected departure for New Orleans, had already brought the reporters buzzing about his apartments. Even as she lifted the blotter to dry the line she had written with such craven boldness, her eye fell on a well-thumbed card before her, bearing the inscription: ALBERT ERIC SPAULDING The Sunday Sun. A moment later she had it in her white-gloved hand, with her own card discreetly hidden away, and in the most matter-of-fact of voices she was asking the busy clerk behind the desk if she could see Mr. Bryan. “Mr. Bryan is a very late riser,” he explained. “I know that,” she answered coolly, “but he’s expecting me, I think.” The clerk looked at her, as he stamped the card, and he continued to look at her, studiously and yet quizzically, as a bell-boy led her back to the elevator. Sunset Bryan and the type of men he stood for, the puzzled clerk knew well enough; but this type of woman he did not know. Sunset, obviously, was branching out.