"Everybody says he's gone to the devil." "He's in the country somewhere," replied Plank cautiously.

"I stopped in to see him the other day, but nobody seemed to know when he would return." Mrs.Mortimer tossed her cigarette onto the hearth.

For a long interval of silence she lay there in her chair, changing her position restlessly from moment to moment; and at length she lay quite still, so long that Plank began to think she had fallen asleep in her chair.
He rose.

She did not stir, and, passing her, he instinctively glanced down.

Her cheeks, half buried against the back of the chair, were overflushed; under the closed lids the lashes glistened wet in the lamplight.
Surprised, embarrassed, he halted, as though afraid to move; and she sat up with a nervous shake of her shoulders.
"What a life!" she said, under her breath; "what a life for a woman to lead!" "Wh-whose ?" he blurted out.
"Mine!" He stared at her uneasily, finding nothing to say.