constitution of a broken drug-bottle, poor soul! She hears
everything from Jarniman: he catches wind of everything. All foreseen,
Fenellan, foreseen. I have made my stand at Lakelands, and there's my
flag till it's hauled down over Victor Radnor. London kills Nataly as
well as Fredi--and me: that is--I can use the words to you--I get back
to primal innocence in the country. We all three have the feeling.
You're a man to understand. My beasts, and the wild flowers,
hedge-banks, and stars. Fredi's poetess will tell you. Quiet waters
reflecting. I should feel it in Paris as well, though they have
nightingales in their Bois. It's the rustic I want to bathe me; and I
had the feeling at school, biting at Horace. Well, this is my Sabine
Farm, rather on a larger scale, for the sake of friends. Come, and pure
air, water from the springs, walks and rides in lanes, high sand-lanes;
Nataly loves them; Fredi worships the old roots of trees: she calls them
the faces of those weedy sandy lanes. And the two dear souls on their
own estate, Fenellan! And their poultry, cows, cream. And a certain
influence one has in the country socially. I make my stand on a
home--not empty punctilio.'

Mr. Fenellan repeated, in a pause, 'Punctilio,' and not emphatically.

'Don't bawl the word,' said Mr. Radnor, at the drum of whose ears it
rang and sang. 'Here in the City the woman's harmless; and here,' he
struck his breast. 'But she can shoot and hit another through me. Ah,
the witch!--poor wretch! poor soul! Only, she's malignant. I could
swear! But Colney 's right for once in something he says about
oaths--"dropping empty buckets," or something.'

'"Empty buckets to haul up impotent demons, whom we have to pay as
heavily as the ready devil himself,"' Mr. Fenellan supplied the phrase.
'Only, the moment old Colney moralizes, he's what the critics call
sententious. We've all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us.'

'Come, Fenellan, I don't think...'

'Oh, yes, but it's true of me too.'

'You reserve it for your enemies.'

'I 'd like to distract it a bit from the biggest of 'em.' He pointed
finger at the region of the heart.

'Here we have Skepsey,' said Mr. Radnor, observing the rapid approach
of a lean small figure, that in about the time of a straight-aimed
javelin's cast, shot from the doorway to the table.

CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE

This little dart of a man came to a stop at a respectful distance from
his master, having the l