Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/156

 unhappiness she realized that sometime she would not feel like this and then she would wish she had not burned his shawls. Perhaps there was something in the bathroom—smelling-salts, cologne, anything that would stop this strangling and sobbing. She felt her way in and lighted a candle. As her fingers ran over the bottles in the cabinet they happened on one with the red label of danger. Laudanum! She realized that if she drank the contents of this one bottle she would be through, not only with remorse, but with life. She drew out the stopper, but the smell sickened her and she threw the bottle into the tub. By dashing cold water over herself and letting the faucet run on her wrists she managed to get her nerves under control.

The clock struck four, and she was quiet again, lying on the bed in Pauline's dressing-room. Never again in her life could she smell a newly papered room without stifling and a sense of nausea. Odd, she thought. She had had enough sense not to burn up the shawls, and yet she might have drunk the laudanum. As if the miserable night had been a penance, she felt at peace again with herself and the world. Her sorrow, her remorse, and her disappointments had mysteriously passed out of her life. Almost! They were still there in the shadowy background, like dogs that had broken loose in the night and nearly throttled her before she could order them back to their kennels. Now they would lie and through the years occasionally look at her and growl a little, or whine, or sleep. And sometimes, through the years, she would look