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Like all delightful things, Mrs Nevill Tyson's laughter was short-lived

When Tyson went up to bed that night between twelve and one, he found his

wife sitting by her bedroom fire in the half-darkness Evidently

conte, for her hair

was still untouched, her silk bodice lay beside her on the floor where

she had let it fall, and she sat robed in her long dressing-gown He caht fell full on her face; it

looked strange and pale against the vivid scarlet of her gown Her eyes,

too, were dim, her mouth had lost its delicate outline, her cheeks seehtly, fuller, and the skin looked

glazed as if by the courses of es

before; of late they had coht it seeurement as a sudden

precocious e of

what it would be ten, fifteen years hence And as he looked at her a cold

and subtle pang went through hiled

with a sort of spiritual pain He dared not give a nanized as self-reproach He had

known it once or twice before

He stooped over her and kissed her "Why are you sitting up here and

crying, all by your little self?"