"But deep in the heart of the iceberg there burns a flame, glowing and intense. Now and then it melts its way out, and for a few minutes there are gorgeous fireworks. That was the young woman's natural voice, and she was improving the infrequent opportunity of using it by letting herself go." "What do you think----" I began. "I don't think at all," he broke in. "At least for to-night. In the morning my brain may begin to function again, but it refuses to be squeezed any further at present." "They've had their five minutes grace," remarked Warriner, after another brief pause, "and I'm off to bed. Good night." Warriner seemed to melt away and become part of the surrounding darkness; after a minute or two I followed, and reached my room without further incident. Again my night's rest was a troubled one. Chapter VIII _Adventuring on "Sugar Loaf"_ It was a glorious summer morning, and as I descended the staircase I could look through the wide opened door and see the rolling acres of "Hildebrand Hundred" lying gracious and fair under a cloudless sky. Bees were humming among the flowers, and a whiff of new mown hay drifted in on a vagrant breeze. Yes, this old world is a pretty pleasant place to live in, provided of course that one doesn't make a tactical mistake and settle down too far East or West, as the case may be. But given the right place and the right people, and existence on this planet may be very comfortable indeed. Nobody seemed to be around, although it was nearly nine o'clock, and I walked into the library. There I found Chalmers Warriner bending over a large glazed case which stood in a remote corner of the room. "Good morning," he smiled. "I've been amusing myself in looking over the collection of butterflies and moths made by your predecessor, old Richard Hildebrand. I believe it is considered valuable." I glanced carelessly at the rows of inanimate insects fixed in their painful museum attitudes. There can be no quarrelling with tastes, but mine do not run in this direction. I made some perfunctory assent to Warriner's glowing encomiums upon the quality of Uncle Richard's _magnum opus_ (it seems that our good Chalmers is himself an amateur of distinction in entomological science), and then haled him off for breakfast. Quite naturally we drifted back to the library. It was the pleasantest and most homelike room in the house, a characteristic that persisted for all that the shadow of a possible tragedy still rested there. But after all, men must die somewhere, some time, and it would be impracticable to transform every death chamber into a mortuary chapel. Death is a natural process; why try to invest it with unnatural terror. "My dear," said a very old woman to her blooming goddaughter, "you will some day come to know that old age needs and desires death just as youth needs and desires sleep."