cked up the
quill, and held it over the lamp's flame; but her eyes still questioned
the antimacassar. She was bending close to it when Mrs. Pope emitted a
fluttering sigh and lifted her eyelids feebly.

"You are feeling better, dear?" asked Miss Gabriel, solicitously.

At this moment the latch of the door rattled gently. She looked up in
surprise, for Mrs. Treacher could scarcely have gone and returned in so
short a while.

The door opened. On the threshold stood a vision--a woman clad in
furs--a woman with diamonds flashing on her white throat where the furs
parted.

Miss Gabriel gasped.

The apparition stood for a moment, looked her in the eyes, and was
gone, closing the door softly.

Miss Gabriel tottered, and sank back against the sofa's edge.

CHAPTER VIII

A BRIEF REVENGE

"Ladies?" ejaculated the Commandant. "In my quarters?"

Vashti nodded demurely. "I think you might have told me," she said in a
tone of mild reproach.

"But--my dear young lady----"

"Thank you--"

"Hey?"

"--for calling me young." She reached out a hand, and, taking the
lantern from him, held it high so that the beams fell on her face. "It
is many years since our first meeting, and unhappily we have the date
of it fixed. Give me credit that I reminded you; for I don't mind
confessing that, though it hasn't come to a quarrel yet, my
looking-glass and I are not the friends we were."

Here, had the Commandant been a readier man, he might have answered
with a compliment, and a truthful one. For indeed it was a very
beautiful face that the lantern showed him, and--here was the strange
part of the business--it had been growing younger since she stepped off
the ship, and somehow it must have contrived, in spite of the darkness,
to convey a hint of its rejuvenescence, for the word "young" had
slipped from him quite involuntarily.

But, after all, there is nothing so subtle as simplicity, and, after
all, the Commandant managed to imply that she must be a witch.

"Then, my dear young lady," he replied, "since you have spirited these
females into my quarters, I can only ask you to go and spirit them away
again."

She shook her head.

"What! You won't?... Very well, then, I must deal with them, while you
go off with the lantern and search for Mrs. Treacher."

"You are a brave man," said she; "and--and I think--by the look of
them--you are going to have great fun."

The Commandant stood for a moment rubbing his chin and