The great lady shrugged her shoulders.
The woman with the white hair pulled herself up very suddenly. There was a quick, convulsive movement of her hands and for a short second her eyes closed. She went to the table and caught the money between her fingers and dragged it across the red cover to her.
"I thank Madame."
The great lady walked slowly to the door.
"Good-by. Perhaps some day I'll be back."
"Perhaps—Madame. Good-by."
The great lady went out of the room and closed the door behind her. The sound of her high-heeled footsteps tapped in sharp staccato down the uncarpeted stairs, and died away into the stillness. The long-drawn creak of rusty hinges and then the muffled thud of the front door swinging to. In the street the soft diminishing whirr of a motor grew fainter and was gone.
Silence.
The woman sank into a chair and buried her face between her two shaking hands.
Shadows crept up against the uncurtained window and pressed, quivering, against the pane. Shadows came into the room and stretched themselves along the floor. Shadows reached up across the wall and over the chairs and the table. Shadows spread in a gray, moving mass over the still figure of the woman.