"Fool!" was Leah's comment on this carelessness. "Doesn't he know he is dead, and is about to be buried?" She thrust the letter hastily into her pocket and was about to hurry away, when she caught a glimpse of the Russian's darkening face. She paused wisely, to dismiss him with a compliment. "You have managed splendidly, M. Demetrius." "Do I not deserve to be called Constantine, now?" "Yes--no--that is--oh, don't bother"; Lady Jim snatched away the hand he had captured. "You foreigners never learn sense." "Are you teaching it to me now?" he asked in a metallic voice. "I am--if you are clever enough to learn the lesson. See as little of me as possible, and don't speak to me at all. When Jim--that is, when Garth--is buried, we shall see." "But, madame----" "Quite so. Consider your objections answered." "They will be answered," said Demetrius, very distinctly, "before the altar of any church you may select." A remembrance of his capacity for being dangerous, and an anxious survey of his narrowing eyes, made her deceptive. She diplomatically employed feminine strategy, against which no man living can man[oe]uvre. "You doubt me, Constantine," whispered the she-Judas, with trembling tenderness; "will not this----?" She bent forward to drop a butterfly kiss on his forehead, and left him dazed, in the seventh and most exalted Paradise of Fools. "Faugh!" said Lady Jim, when shut up in her own room. There she read the communication from her legally deceased husband. It narrated a story similar to that detailed by Demetrius, but scarcely so concisely. Mr. Berring showed a disposition to ramble, and his excursions ended on every occasion in a command to send half the insurance money at once--the last two words being aggressively underlined. He was in the best of health, on his way to Buenos Ayres; thence would travel to Rosario--"where that woman lives," commented Leah, tearing off the address and carefully burning Jim's maunderings. "Half the money--eh? Fifteen thousand pounds! I think not, Mr. Berring. That captain, too, with his absurd charge, and after all my trouble! I wonder Demetrius does not claim his share, also." It would have been cheaper had he done so, since she possessed the money and he intended to possess her. But he would refuse a cheque and claim her hand, as she reflected with impotent rage. What a pity she could not pay him off, and, along with Jim and Strange, dismiss him into Limbo! She did not exactly know what Limbo was, or where it was, save that once there these people could not bother her. But with all the will in the world she could not get out of the apparent cul-de-sac she had walked into. "Demetrius wants _me_, and these other beasts my money," she raged inwardly. "What a mean advantage they all take! Pigs! As though I worked for nothing. What is to be done? What--what?"