When she returned to her lodgings, it did not occur to her to rouse the
landlady and demand remedies or attentions. The walk home had been a
nightmare, and now she had all she wanted--solitude and the blessed
darkness. She threw off her dress and boots, and walked the room hour
after hour. She still heard the brazen band, and saw the flaming
lights and her ears echoed to the dreadful sounds of hissing.
Sometimes she had drunk feverishly of the very doubtful water against
which Emile had so often cautioned her. When it was nearly dawn she
gave in, and lay huddled up on the bed, half-delirious with the pain
and feeling of suffocation.
Two streets away, and in a room more squalid than her own, Vardri was
also enduring his own private Purgatory. Hers was physical, his
mental. That was all the difference.
Long before half-past eight he was down at the stables and there
received the dismissal he had fully expected, being ordered off the
premises by the head groom, who had received directions the night
before to give Vardri a week's wages, and turn him out of the place
without delay.
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