The Wheel of Life

herself and begin anew the inevitable and agonising pursuit of pleasure. The temptation of the morning had been to let go--to relax in despair from the fruitlessness of her endeavor--and the result of this brief withdrawal was apparent in the order which she gave the footman before the open door of her carriage.

"To Miss Wilde's first"--the words ended abruptly and she turned eagerly, with outstretched hand, to a man who had hurried toward her from the corner of Fifth Avenue.

"So you haven't forgotten me in six months, Arnold," she said, with a sweetness in which there was an almost imperceptible tone of bitterness.

He took her hand in both of his, pressing it for an instant in a quick muscular grasp which had in it something of the nervous vigor that lent a peculiar vibrant quality to his voice.

"And I couldn't have done it in six years," he replied, as a singularly charming smile illumined his forcible rather than regular features, and brought out the genial irony in his expressive light gray ey