g, and then there were
countless hardships to endure--hardships which must be less bearable to
those who had known luxury and refinements. She did not like to dwell
upon anything that was painful or even sordid; and when memory persisted
in dragging before her reluctant eyes the dead body of any particularly
hateful scene in her past, as a cat will sometimes obstinately lay before
its master a rat it has mangled, she was in the habit of dulling her
sensibility by drinking a little absinthe in which some chlorodyne had
been dropped.

When she travelled, she always carried two or three bottles of the liquor
with her, wrapped in laces and cambric, in her luggage, for she had grown
used to it, and could hardly support life without its soothing influence
now. She was careful not to take too much, however, for she worshipped
her own beauty; and absinthe was an enemy to a woman's complexion.

She felt to-night, lying in the harbour of Noumea, as she had felt
sometimes during a furious _sirocco_ in Sicily--restless, unnerved,
fearful of some vague evil, though common sense assured her that nothing
of the kind she dimly pictured could possibly happen. She remembered
uncomfortable things more vividly and painfully than usual, too; and, at
last, she could deny herself the wished-for solace no longer. She rose
from her berth, trailing exquisite silk and lace (for the woman must
always frame her beauty worthily, even for her own eyes alone), poured
out half a glass of absinthe, dropped in her allowance of the drug, added
water, till the mixture looked like liquid opal, and sipped the beverage
with a kind of dainty greed.

In a few minutes she had ceased to care whether the _Bella Cuba_ lay in
the harbour of Noumea or off Sydney Heads. What did it matter? What harm
could come?

Presently, lying in her berth, dreamily staring out at the moonlight
through the open porthole, her lovely arms pillowing her head, the
Countess became aware that the yacht was moving. So they were getting out
to sea again, she told herself. A little while ago she would have been
delighted, as if at an escape, because, as she had said, Noumea was
hateful, and no place for pleasure-seekers. But now that the absinthe and
chlorodyne soothed her nerves she was comparatively indifferent whether
they stopped or steamed away. Nothing unpleasant had happened. Of course
not; why should it? She had racked her nerves, and given herself a
headache all in vain. Still,