In this abandonment of her duty there was but one hopeful sign--she never neglected herself or her appearance. Whenever she permitted Antony to see her she was beautifully dressed. Her black and white garments were of the loveliest materials, and were so made and worn as to give an air of plaintive pathos and elegance to all her movements. Every day Antony, furtively watching her going out and her coming in, was touched and smitten afresh by loveliness so near and dear to him, and yet so far beyond his power to influence. And yet, every day he grew more hopeless, for Rose's sin was now very different from what it had been. Her temptation to drink had been in his sight a deformity, a disease, a calamity, but while Rose sinned against her will he did not call it a sin; he was as ready to forgive as she was to be sorry. But this indulgence of a defiant temper in the face of her actual transgression, was a sin having its origin in _the will_; and it was, therefore, in all its essence and results devilish and sorrow-making. Towards the close of this unhappy summer a lady in the vicinity gave a masked dance, and Antony and Rose received invitations. Antony regarded them as mere courtesies, for they were still in mourning, and it was hardly possible Rose would deny and defy all her summer attitude by accepting them. As she was passing him in the hall he said, "Rose, Mrs. Lawson has sent us invitations to her mask dance. Of course they are merely complimentary." There was no answer. "Mrs. Lawson knows we are in mourning; and besides, we may be in the city before the twentieth." Rose was leisurely walking upstairs, but she heard the words, and a sudden resolve to cap all her contradictions by going to the dance entered her mind. It gave her such a fillip of mischievous pleasure as she had not felt for a long time: and the following day she went into New York and bought what she desired for the occasion. Antony sent a polite refusal and thought no more of the matter. Indeed, on the day before the dance, he began to prepare for a return to the city; and on the twentieth he went into New York to make arrangements for the continuance of his lease, as his own house was not finished. He did not return until a later train than usual, and Rose was in hopes of escaping his notice until her object had been accomplished. Then, of course, there would be a scene; and she enjoyed the prospect of it. She was brewing a storm, and delighting herself in the hellish concoction. When Antony came home he saw the carriage at the front door, and the coachman waiting by the horses. "Where are you going at this time of night, Clemens?" he asked. "Mrs. Van Hoosen is going to Mrs. Lawson's dance, sir."