Her tormentor continued: “It is hot down there--hot as the curse of society. The wantons burn in a fever of lonely lust. They thirst for a sip of the affection and poetry--even of the rashness which made the passion-cup sweet. And all the endless hours until That Day they’ll not get a drop to wet their lying lips and sin-blacked tongues.” A tug upon the hem of the royal robe cut short the inquisition. An aged female _manes_, sear-looking and fate-limned as would have been a relief map of this Erubian Realm, had tottered up behind them unheard. Her silvered hair writhed backward in the blast from The Well. Her hands shook toward it as shake withered grasses over a dry creek bed. “Sire, she cannot stand it much longer down there, my Millie,” the crone-soul quavered. “Ha, Grandma Nuisance again!” Unconventionally Satan introduced her to Dolores. “An oldish lady who has seen better days. Ever notice that most oldish ladies _have_ seen better days?” “I am asking naught for myself, your gracious Majesty. I was old enough to know better. But Millie wasn’t twenty yet and that high-strung and sore-tempted.” Ungraciously His Majesty continued to explain her: “That dame, after an impeccable life on her own account, plunged a knife through the licentious breast of an offspring who, despite frequent asseverations that she’d rather be dead, lacked courage to perform the function for herself. They sentenced the old girl for life, the judge and jury having that weakness for mothers which is bred in the womb of the world. Down here, I haven’t seemed to find the right berth for her, so have left her to her own devices, which take the form of torturing herself in this existence as in the last over the sins of her Millie the Magnificent.” With threatening manner he turned on the crone. “I told you not to follow me again.” “But I am driven. I failed to fetch her up right or she’d never have gone wrong. It’s all my fault. Let her out of the well. Let me take her place.” The grief coursing from her faded eyes seemed again to change the variable royal mood. Seizing her wisp of hair, he compelled her to the edge. “At least you may suffer with her,” he conceded. “Misery loves company, they say.” He thrust forward her peaked face. When her eyes failed to moisture at thought of the wrench he had given her neck, he essayed a wrench at her heart. “See Her Magnificence on the ledge just below, parching, burning, dying an age-long death of thirst. Hi, there, Millicent, have you thought out some new way you might have married him? Here’s mother dear, come to bring you a drink. How her brilliant beauty is fading under drouth! You who suckled her as a babe, you cannot deny her just one drop? But alas, your bosoms are withered as your face. Surely, though, you’re not out of tears?” Over the rim he called: “The drink, the _drink_, Millicent! Mother’s tears--extra salt.”