"The springs of human life are never crushed. Sometimes a generation
must suffer that succeeding ones may be blest."

"The question is," Mr. Foley said, holding up his wine-glass, "how far
we are justified in experiments concerning which nothing absolute can be
known, experiments of so disastrous a nature."

A servant entered and made a communication to Mr. Foley, who turned at
once to Maraton.

"It is your secretary," he announced, "who has arrived from London with
some letters."

Maraton at once followed the servant from the room. Mr. Foley, too,
rose to his feet.

"In ten minutes or so," he declared, "I shall follow you. We can have
our chat quietly in the study."

Maraton followed the butler across the hall and found himself ushered
into a room at the back of the house--a room lined with books; with
French windows, wide open, leading out on to the lawn; a room
beautifully cool and odoriferous with the perfume of roses. A single
lamp was burning upon a table; for the rest, the apartment seemed full
of the soft blue twilight of the summer night. Maraton came to a
standstill with an exclamation of surprise. A tall, very slim figure in
plain dark clothes had turned from the French windows and was standing
there now, her face turned towards him a little eagerly, a strange light
upon her pale cheeks and in the eyes which seemed to shine at him almost
feverishly out of the sensuous twilight.