And here's the naked stem of thorns."
THE game stopped abruptly, and between them Chris and Feathers carried Marie from the room. "It was the smoke, and the heat!" Atkins kept saying in distress. He felt angry with himself for not having noticed how pale she looked. "It was jolly hot! It was the smoke and stuffiness. It'' an ordinary faint, isn't it?"
Nobody took any notice of him, or answered him, but he kept on talking all the same. He was young and impressionable, and he thought Marie was altogether charming. He was thankful when at last her lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes.
Feathers, who was bending over her, moved away, and Chris came forward.
"Better?" he asked. "It was the hot room; I'll take you upstairs. It's all right, you only fainted."
Only fainted! Years afterwards he remembered the passionate look in her brown eyes as she raised them to his face, and wondered what her thoughts had been. Perhaps he would have understood a great deal of what she was suffering if he had known that the wild words trembling on her lips were:
"I wish I could have died! I would like to have died!"
Feathers picked up her gloves and fan, which had fallen to the floor. His ugly face was commiserating as he looked at her.
"The room was very stuffy. It was inconsiderate of us to let you be 26 there, Mrs. Lawless. I am afraid it was my fault!"
His fault. Everything was his fault, she told herself bitterly, as she turned away. And yet—surely it was better to know now the true facts of her marriage than to learn them later on—when it was too late.