tch over the water that went
up in vapour and returned to the crystal liquid that was more precious
than rubies and sapphires. He was redeeming himself, just as he was
redeeming the water from the poison that had made it useless. He
experimented with lizards: the water as it came from the springs brought
quick death to the little reptiles. The fishes in the aquarium died
before it occurred to any one to remove them from the noxious water.

Drusilla kept close to his side during all of these operations. She
seemed afraid or ashamed to join the others; she avoided Lady Deppingham
as completely as possible. Her effort to be friendly when they were
thrown together was almost pitiable.

As for Lady Agnes, she seemed stricken by an unconquerable lassitude;
the spirits that had controlled her voice, her look, her movements, were
sadly missing. It was with a most transparent effort that she managed to
infuse life into her conversation. There were times when she stood
staring out over the sea with unseeing eyes, and one knew that she was
not thinking of the ocean. More than once Genevra had caught her
watching Deppingham with eyes that spoke volumes, though they were mute
and wistful.

From time to time the sentinels brought to Lord Deppingham and Chase
missives that had been tossed over the walls by the emissaries of
Rasula. They were written by the leader himself and in every instance
expressed the deepest sympathy for the plague-ridden chateau. It was
evident that Rasula believed that the occupants were slowly but surely
dying, and that it was but a question of a few days until the place
would become a charnel-house. With atavic cunning he sat upon the
outside and waited for the triumph of death.

"There's a paucity of real news in these gentle messages that annoys
me," Chase said, after reading aloud the last of the epistles to the
Princess and the Deppinghams. "I rejoice in my heart that he isn't aware
of the true state of affairs. He doesn't appreciate the real calamity
that confronts us. The Plague? Poison? Mere piffle. If he only knew that
I am now smoking my last--_the_ last cigarette on the place!" There was
something so inconceivably droll in the lamentation that his hearers
laughed despite their uneasiness.

"I believe you would die more certainly from lack of cigarettes than
from an over-abundance of poison," said Genevra. She was thinking of the
stock she had hoarded up for him in her dressing-table drawer, un