But even that did not help her. It seemed in some mysterious way to be no longer her room, but the room of someone she had known and half forgotten: who would never come back. It gave her the same feeling she had experienced on returning to the house in London: that the place was haunted. The high cheval glass from her mother’s dressing-room had been brought there for her use. The picture of an absurdly small child—the child to whom this room had once belonged—standing before it naked, rose before her eyes. She had wanted to see herself. She had thought that only her clothes stood in the way. If we could but see ourselves, as in some magic mirror? All the garments usage and education has dressed us up in laid aside. What was she underneath her artificial niceties, her prim moralities, her laboriously acquired restraints, her unconscious pretences and hypocrisies? She changed her clothes for a loose robe, and putting out the light drew back the curtains. The moon peeped in over the top of the tall pines, but it only stared at her, indifferent. It seemed to be looking for somebody else. “I want you to give me up that box,” she said, “and to come away with me where I can be with you and take care of you until you are well.”!

They were sitting in the hall of the hotel. It was the dressing hour and the place was almost empty. He shot a swift glance at her. It was some time before she fell asleep. The high glass faced her as she lay in bed. She could not get away from the idea that it was her mother’s face that every now and then she saw reflected there.

“I fancy that’s the idea,” said Joan. “What will you do if you fail? Go back to China?” “But wasn’t that the Lord’s idea,” he said; “when He gave Eve to Adam to be his helpmeet?” The stone hall was still vibrating to the voices of the last departed guests. Joan was seated on a footstool before the fire in front of Mrs. Denton’s chair.