For a few seconds she busied herself with gloves, veil, and hat-pins, and Curtis happened to glance at the overcoat, which he had placed over the back of a chair.

To his dismay, he noticed that one of the sleeves, the left, was bespattered with blood, but he contrived to refold the garment so as to conceal this grewsome record of a tragedy before his hostess had divested herself of hat and gloves.
Then they seemed to survey each other with a new interest, for Curtis was a good figure of a man in evening dress, and Hermione Grandison became, if possible, more attractive to the male eye because of the wealth of brown hair which crowned her smooth forehead, almost hid her tiny ears, and clustered low at the back of her slender, well-shaped neck.

Where the rays of light caught the coiled tresses they had the sheen of burnished gold.

In the shadow they commingled those voluptuous tints by which the magic of Rubens has immortalized one fair woman, Isabella Brant, in every gallery of note throughout the world.
Hermione it was, now, who first broke the silence which had reigned in the room for a minute or more.

Seating herself on the opposite side of a square table, and resting her elbows thereon, she propped her pretty chin on her small, clenched fists, and gazed fearlessly at Curtis.
"You must think me a very extraordinary person," she began.
"Let that pass," said he, with a smile, wise in the knowledge that the present was no hour for compliments.
"But I am, and I know it, not because I differ so greatly from other girls of my own age, but owing to the misery which has been my portion.
The one man in the world who should wish to secure my happiness has become my persecutor.