checked him. Here stood her house; she had the
briefest possible start of him, and he had run headlong the whole way;
by all the certainty of instinct, he knew that he had chosen the right
path: why, then, had he not overtaken her? If she met that band which he
had just broken through--He wavered in the darkness, and was turning
wildly to race back, when a sudden light sprang up before him in her
window. He plunged forward, in at the gate, across a plot of turf,
stumbled through the Goddess of Mercy bamboo that hedged the door, and
went falling up the dark stairs, crying aloud,--for the first time in
his life,--"Bertha! Bertha!"

Empty rooms rang with the name, but no one answered. At last, however,
reaching the upper level, he saw by lamplight, through the open door,
two figures struggling. Just before he entered, she tore herself free
and went unsteadily across the room. Chantel, white and abject, turned
as in panic.

"Oh!" Plainly he had not expected to see another face as white as his
own. Breathless and trembling, he spoke in a strangely little voice; but
his staring eyes lighted with a sudden and desperate resolution. "Help
me with her," he begged. "She won't listen. The woman's out of
her wits."

He caught Rudolph by the arm; and standing for a moment like close
friends, the two panting rivals watched her in stupefaction. She
ransacked a great cedar chest, a table, shelves, boxes, and strewed the
contents on the floor,--silk scarfs, shining Benares brass, Chinese
silver, vivid sarongs from the Preanger regency, Kyoto cloisonne, a wild
heap of plunder from the bazaars of all the nations where Gilly's meagre
earnings had been squandered. A Cingalese box dropped and burst open,
scattering bright stones, false or precious, broadcast. She trampled
them in her blind and furious search.

"Come," said Chantel, and snatched at her. "Leave those. Come to the
boat. Every minute--"

She pushed him aside like a thing without weight or meaning, stooped
again among the gay rubbish, caught up a necklace, flung it down for
the sake of a brooch, then dropped everything and turned with blank,
dilated eyes, and the face of a child lost in a crowd.

"Rudolph," she whimpered, "help me. What shall I do?"

Without waiting for answer, she bent once more to sort and discard her
pitiful treasures, to pause vaguely, consider, and wring her hands.
Rudolph, in his turn, caught her by the arm, but fared no better.

"We must humor her