delirious and betrayed himself? She would be involved--and Merkle
and Bob.

Every clang of the elevator gate, every footfall outside her door
alarmed her. As with most women, her knowledge of the law was
negligible, her conception of its workings was grotesquely child-
like.

Yet, after all, the incidents of the shooting affected her less
than the amazing change in her own fortunes; she was a wife. The
word sounded shockingly unreal. This was no longer her home, her
sanctuary; another had equal share in it. She no longer belonged
to herself: another--possessed her. And, worst of all, that other
was practically a stranger. She felt her cheeks burn; she was
suffocated by a sense of shame from which there was no escape. In
one night she had passed the turning-point from girlhood to
womanhood, from womanhood to wifehood, and there had been no love,
no faith, no glamour even, in the act. She had deliberately sold
herself; she wearily wondered where the new road led--surely not
to happiness.

Toward evening Adoree Demorest telephoned, and with many
anticipatory exclamations of pleasure invited Lorelei to dine. "I
can't," answered Lorelei, faintly.

"Bother your engagements!" Miss Demorest's disappointment was
keen.

"I can't even explain, unless--you'll come here."