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 CHAPTER V.

THE IMAGE OF BEAUTIFUL SIN.

In his fashionable apartments, Willard Frost walked back and forth in his loose dressing-gown. Rustling about the room, his softly slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger—looked like "some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger from man was either just going off or just coming on."

A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude. He moved from end to end of his voluptuous room, looking now and again at a picture which hung just above a Persian couch, covered with a half dozen embroidered pillows.

What unmanageable thoughts ran riot in his head, as he surveyed the superb image and thought that only one thing was wanting—the breath of life—for which he had waited through all these months.

For two heavy hours he walked and thought; now he would heave a long, low sigh, then hold his breath again.