hing
that no good works have resulted from the faith, the hope and the good
intentions. A little more, and we shall accomplish, he assures us, the
full measure of our dreams. The dose is increased, confidence returns,
and performance is still for to-morrow. I have never seen a victim of
Ambrotox pursue this descent to the grave, but all analogous experience
assures me that the final stages must be hell."

"How do you know so much about the effects?" asked Dick.

"There was only one possible subject for experiment--myself," replied
Caldegard.

Amaryllis sat upright in her chair, and drew in her breath sharply. But
she did not speak.

"Ghastly risk to take," said Dick.

"Ghastly," assented Caldegard. "But it wasn't the first, nor the second
time that I'd chanced it. The very memory of the horrors I went through
in curing myself after a course of hashish, gave me faith in my power to
push this tremendous experiment to the point I had determined upon,
without overshooting the mark."

"What was the mark?" inquired Dick.

"The appearance," replied Caldegard, "of certain cardiac symptoms which
I expected."

"Oh, dad!" exclaimed Amaryllis. "That must have been the time when you
sent for Dr. Greaves at three in the morning."

Caldegard nodded.

"For three weeks after that," went on Amaryllis indignantly, "I thought
you were horribly ill."

"That, my darling," answered her father, smiling at her, "was because I
was getting better."

"I've been wondering, Caldegard," said Randal, "how often and how
strongly the remembrance of that incommunicable bliss cries out for an
epicurean repetition of those early stages of your scientific
experiment."

Caldegard laughed. "Oh, she calls, and calls pretty loud sometimes," he
said. "Let her call. It's all part of the experiment. Knowledge, you
see, has the sweeter voice."

Amaryllis had tears in her eyes, and for a moment the others waited on
her evident desire to speak.

"But do you think, father," she said at last, "that's it's really worth
while to let the world know you have found a more delightful temptation
than opium or cocaine, just for the sake of giving a few sick people a
more comfortable medicine than they've been accustomed to. Ambrotox!"
she sighed scornfully. "I wish I'd never given it that pretty name. I
think it's horrid stuff!"

"That's what I was going to ask," said Dick.

"As for publicity, my dear boy," replied Caldegard, "Ambrotox will very
probab