should you insinuate such a thing?"

"Mademoiselle, I insinuate nothing," replied the Professor. "I am
endeavouring to ascertain the exact state of your mental balance. Your
anger is, in itself, a most gratifying feature. A thousand pardons if
you feel that I have insulted you," he added with the extreme
politeness of his race.

Then, through the folding doors which divided the apartments, we heard
him say:

"Will you please give me both your hands, and look directly into my
eyes?"

There was a silence.

We could hear the Professor sigh, but he made no comment.

His examination occupied nearly an hour. He put to her many searching
questions in an endeavour to restore her memory as to what happened,
but without avail. Those questions seemed to perturb her, for of a
sudden she cried loudly, indeed she almost shrieked in terror:

"Ah! no! no! Save me!" she implored. "I--I can't stand it! I can't--I
really can't! See! Look! Look! There it is again--all red, green and
gold!--all red, green and gold!"

And we could hear her expressions of fear as she gazed upon some
imaginary object which held her terrified.

We heard the kindly old Professor putting many questions to her in an
endeavour to discover what gave rise to that nameless horror which she
so often experienced, but her replies were most vague. She seemed
unable to describe the chimera of her imagination. Yet it was only too
plain that on that fatal night she had seen something bearing those
colours which had so impressed itself upon her mind as distinctly
horrible that it constantly recurred to her.

Yet she was unable to describe it, owing to her mental aberration.

Time after time, she implored the Professor's protection from some
imaginary peril, and time after time, after she had begged him to
remain near her, she repeated those mysterious and meaningless words:

"Red, green and gold!--red, green and gold!"

In breathless anxiety we listened, but all we could hear were the
Professor's sighs of despair, which meant far more to Mrs. Tennison
and myself than any of his words could convey.

We knew that upon poor Gabrielle, the girl I loved with all my heart
and soul, the deadly drug had done its work--and that she was, alas!
incurable!

Her case was hopeless, even in the hands of the one man in all Europe
who knew the effects of orosin and had only in two cases effected
cures.

I looked at her mother in silence. She knew my thoughts, for tears