When, walking from Lennan's studio, Olive reentered her dark little hall, she approached its alcove and glanced first at the hat-stand. They were all there--the silk hat, the bowler, the straw! So he was in! And within each hat, in turn, she seemed to see her husband's head--with the face turned away from her--so distinctly as to note the leathery look of the skin of his cheek and neck. And she thought: "I pray that he will die! It is wicked, but I pray that he will die!" Then, quietly, that he might not hear, she mounted to her bedroom. The door into his dressing-room was open, and she went to shut it. He was standing there at the window.
"Ah! You're in! Been anywhere?"
"To the National Gallery."
It was the first direct lie she had ever told him, and she was surprised to feel neither s
