Yes, we are twins, there is some affinity between us, and in a way we do know each other's thoughts, and I know you have thought of me—that I have haunted you like you have haunted me. That is the truth, is it not, Martha?'

With a half step threateningly forward the actress, with a shrug pulling at the pearls fastening her pale gloves, admitted sullenly:

'Yes, I suppose it is true. You have rather haunted me. And that is why I came. But what is there in it? Why do we talk about it or think of it?'

'And the other thing you said is not true, either,' continued Kezia coming still closer to the other woman. 'You didn't come here in a fit of kindness. You hate me as much as I hate you. You can't endure to think that I am existing in Stibbards, any more than I can endure to think that you are existing in Paris.'

'It does get on my nerves, sometimes,' admitted Mme. Lesarge, 'but I don't know why it should. It is a mere accident that we're sisters—twin sisters. We're quite different women.'

'I wonder,' said Kezia Faunce, with great bitterness. 'Perhaps we really are the same kind of woman, only in you one side, and in I the other, has got the uppermost. Well, it's no good talking about that. I, at least, have behaved myself, and you haven't. I've every right to scorn you, but you've no right at all to scorn me. You've been a bad woman since you were a young girl—bad daughter, bad wife. Not fulfilling a single duty or obligation, while I did everything that was expected of me.'

Mme. Lesarge echoed these words with an accent of mockery.

'Everything that was expected of you—poor Kezia!'

'It's all very well to jeer, but I stayed behind. I nursed mother, I nursed father, I didn't get married when I might have got married, because it meant leaving them. There were all kinds of things that I would have liked to have done, but I didn't even think about them. And when father and mother were dead I felt a duty towards Stibbards, to the name, the position we held.'

Mme. Lesarge interrupted this with great gusts of laughter, half-hysterical laughter. She turned towards the door.

'I really think I shall go mad if I stay here and listen to you any longer. I do hope you will leave Paris soon. And please don't try to see me again.'

'No,' said Kezia sourly, 'I won't try to see you again, it's too horrible. The worst of it is that I shan't be able to avoid thinking about you.'

'I suppose not.'

Mme. Lesarge had her hand on the door-knob. The two sisters were looking at each other very intently and in the utter unself-consciousness of that moment of passion the likeness between them was quite strong. The dyed curls of the actress and the harsh grey hair of Kezia Faunce seemed mere details in the general resemblance, which was one of shape and structure.

'Are you going to act tonight?' asked Miss Faunce.

'Yes. I hope you won't be there to see me. It would make me nervous if I thought you were watching.'

'I've watched you twice, as I told you. I shan't come again.