on the clustering
brown curls, tenderly.

"Martin." She raised her face to him. "Martin, it's GONE! I'm--ME again!
All ME! What happened? Where's Norhala?"

I started. Did she not know? Of course, lying bound as she had in the
vanished veils, she could have seen nothing of the stupendous tragedy
enacted beyond them--but had not Ventnor said that possessed by the
inexplicable obsession evoked by the weird woman Ruth had seen with her
eyes, thought with her mind?

And had there not been evidence that in her body had been echoed the
torments of Norhala's? Had she forgotten? I started to speak--was
checked by Ventnor's swift, warning glance.

"She's--over in the Pit," he answered her quietly. "But do you remember
nothing, little sister?"

"There's something in my mind that's been rubbed out," she replied.
"I remember the City of Cherkis--and your torture, Martin--and my
torture--"

Her face whitened; Ventnor's brow contracted anxiously. I knew for what
he watched--but Ruth's shamed face was all human; on it was no shadow
nor trace of that alien soul which so few hours since had threatened us.

"Yes," she nodded, "I remember that. And I remember how Norhala
repaid them. I remember that I was glad, fiercely glad, and then I was
tired--so tired. And then--I come to the rubbed-out place," she ended
perplexedly.

Deliberately, almost banally had I not realized his purpose, he changed
the subject. He held her from him at arm's length.

"Ruth!" he exclaimed, half mockingly, half reprovingly. "Don't you think
your morning negligee is just a little scanty even for this Godforsaken
corner of the earth?"

Lips parted in sheer astonishment, she looked at him. Then her eyes
dropped to her bare feet, her dimpled knees. She clasped her arms across
her breasts; rosy red turned all her fair skin.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh!" And hid from Drake and me behind the tall figure
of her brother.

I walked over to the pile of silken stuffs, took the cloak and tossed it
to her. Ventnor pointed to the saddlebags.

"You've another outfit there, Ruth," he said. "We'll take a turn through
the place. Call us when you're ready. We'll get something to eat and go
see what's happening--out there."

She nodded. We passed through the curtains and out of the hall into the
chamber that had been Norhala's. There we halted, Drake eyeing Martin
with a certain embarrassment. The older man thrust out his hand to him.

"I knew it, Drake," he said. "Rut