k to
the deal table, uttering short little howls of fury.

Godfrey advanced very politely and saying, "I believe this is your
property, Madame," placed the battered remnant of humanity upon the
table beside the black bottle. As he did so, he glanced at the
mesmerist, then turned and fled, for her face was like to that of a
devil.

"Monsieur Boiset," he said, when they reached the street, "something
has happened to me. I am quite changed. Not for all the world would I
go near Madame Riennes again. Indeed, now I feel as though I wished to
run away from her."

"That is good!" said the Pasteur. "Oh! I thought it would be so, for I
know how to deal with such witches. But not too fast, not too fast, my
Godfrey. I wonder what the old Egyptians put into the heads of their
mummies to make them so heavy."

"Bitumen," answered Godfrey, and proceeded in a cheerful voice to give
an account of the Egyptian process of mummification to his tutor, which
Isobel and he had acquired in the course of their miscellaneous reading
at Monk's Acre. Indeed, as he had said, whatever the reason, he was
changed and prepared to talk cheerfully about anything. A great burden
was lifted from his soul.

From that day forward Godfrey became what a youth of his years and race
should be, a high-spirited, athletic, and active young man. Madame
Riennes and her visions passed from him like a bad dream. Thoughtful he
remained always, for that was his nature; sometimes sad also, when he
thought of Isobel, who seemed to have disappeared quite out of his
life. But as was natural at his age, this mood weakened by degrees. She
was always there in the background, but she ceased to obscure the
landscape as she had done before, and was to do in his after life. Had
she been a girl of the common type, attractive only because she was a
young and vivacious woman, doubtless the eclipse would have been
complete. Occasionally, indeed, men do love fools in an enduring
fashion, which is perhaps the most evil fate that can be laid upon
them. For what can be worse than to waste what is deep and real upon a
thing of flesh without a soul, an empty, painted bubble, which evades
the hand, or bursts if it is grasped? Those are the real unfortunates,
who have sold themselves for a mess of potage, that for the most part
they are never even allowed to eat, since before the bell rings it has
probably been deposited by heaven knows what hand of Circumstance in
someone else's pl