"It is finished," said the woman, speaking very quietly to herself. "Not another day, nor a night, if I can be ready before morning " She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed upon the ground floor.