rs
passed. Nobody came. He worked himself gradually into a fever of
impotent rage. Civilization slipped away from him. He was ready, if
necessary, to fight with his teeth, to gouge eyes, to inflict any
barbarous atrocity upon his enemy.

Gradually, for the air in the room was fresh, the feeling of sickness
passed away, and was succeeded by weakness and lassitude. As a matter of
fact, being a strong man, in splendid health, he was faint from hunger.
But he did not know this.

An elderly woman came softly into the room. She wore a blue dress, a
white apron, a white kerchief, white cuffs, a white cap. Her face was
disfigured by a great brown protruding mole from which a tuft of hair
sprouted; she had an expression of methodical kindness, but small
shifting eyes in which was no honesty.

She carried a cup that smoked. She put the cup on a table, lifted
Wilmot to a sitting position, as if he had been a child, and asked him
if he was hungry.

For a moment he did not answer; he was getting used to the discovery
that he had been undressed and was wearing a linen night-gown. Then he
nodded toward the smoking cup.

"How do I know it isn't poisoned?"

"Come--come," said the woman, "you'd have gone out under the chloroform
if that had been the intention. Better keep your strength up."

After a few spoonfuls of the soup, Wilmot suggested that he should
prefer something solid.

The woman shook her head.

"If I'm to be kept alive," he said petulantly, "why not comfortably?"

"Nothing solid. That's the doctor's orders."

"Blizzard's?"

"No. The doctor."

"What doctor?"

"Why, Dr. Ferris."

"Where is he? I want to speak to him."

"He isn't here. He's coming when everything's ready."

"Everything ready?" A nameless fear began to gnaw at Wilmot's vitals.
And at that moment the door swung open, and he saw, beyond the bulking
head and shoulders of the legless man, a narrow iron table, white and
shining, in a room all glass and white paint.

On the entrance of Blizzard, the woman took up the remains of the soup,
and passed noiselessly out of the room.

Blizzard climbed to the foot of Wilmot's bed, and sat looking at him. In
his eyes there was a glitter of suppressed excitement. "When our last
talk was interrupted," he said, "I had just told you that Miss Ferris is
a prisoner in this house. You don't like the idea?"

Wilmot shuddered and made a convulsive effort to break the handcuffs. He
struggled with them in des