'That is just what I want,' said Josephine. 'I wish it would snow five feet deep. I would like nothing better than to be snowed up. I would like to be desiccatedlike a man I was reading of yesterday; he's in a French novel. Do you know, he was desiccated; he was a convict, you see, and the men of science could try their experiments upon him; and they desiccated him and laid him by; and he was forgotten, and years passed, and everything changed in the world, and his children grew up, and his friends diedif he had any friends; and people forgot what this preparation was; and they cut off a bit of his ear to try under the microscope whether it was an animal's skin or what it was. And afterwards the skin was put in water and he came to life again that was all he wanted, you know, like a rose of Jericho. I wish I could be desiccated and kept awhile, till everybody was dead that I know, and then come to life again.'

'What would be the pleasure of that?' said Hazel, watching her.

'I should never see Charteris any more. I suppose I shock youbut what's the use of pretending? He's away in Albany now; and as soon as he went, I ran. You see, it isn't at all a bad sort of a place here. Little rooms, to be sure, but there's nobody in them but me; and Rhodes is a capital cook, and she pets me, and I like to be petted. And I have my own way here, and down in 40th street I can't. With all the world outside the house, and a husband inside, there is no place to breathe. I enjoy it here ever so much, and I don't want to go back, ever! Don't you want to run away too, by this time?'

'Then it is a real scheme, deep-laid and serious,' said Wych Hazel.
'Not the whim Mr. Nightingale calls it?'

'Mr. Nightingale!' said Josephine, her face changing and darkening. 'What does he say of me? Has he spoken to you about me? He doesn't know anything.'

'About anything.No. And never by any chance speaks the truth about the few things he does know. He said that Mr. Charteris had gone to Albany, and that Mrs. Charteris had the pretty whim to follow him. "Touching," I think he called it.' The disdain in the girl's voice was incomparable.

'That will do,' said Josephine. 'It's nobody's business whether I am in Albany or not. Never mind him; talk to me. Why haven't I seen you anywhere all winter? Does Dane Rollo want you to stay at home, now he is married? like Charteris?'

'I am married too,' said Wych Hazel with a flash of her old self. 'So take care what you say about him. Josephine, did you tell that man you were going to Albany?'

'Nonsense!' said Josephine laughing. 'I believe you are afraid to answer. I know you used to like to have your own way. Did I tell Stuart? No. What should I tell him for? I didn't tell him I was going to Albany, because I wasn't. I was coming here; and that wasn't worth telling a fib about. I came here to do what I like; and I just do it from morning to night. I suppose you are learning to do what you don't like. How does it feel?'

'I did not believe one word he said, all the time!' said Hazel, coolly ignoring the insinuations. 'Why should Stuart Nightingale invent falsehoods to cover the movements of Josephine Charteris?'