"You've been at that wench, again," said a dry, passionless accent which Andrew was horrified to recognize as Mrs. Gentian's. "I'll not suffer it, Hilary. I'll not suffer it any more." A low rasping murmur replied. The other voice fell to meet it, and Andrew found himself gripping the back of a chair with a clenched hand. Mrs. Gentian was so taciturn at the best of times that he had come to think of her as a statue rather than a woman--a statue whose worn, fine hands busied themselves interminably with flowers of lace and needlework, but whose memorial mouth was as dedicated to silence as the mouth of a buried nun. Now, though, those lips had opened, and a voice, arid and clear as the rattle of dry palm-branches in the wind, spoke out a hate so weary and long enduring that it hurt the mind. Andrew closed the window as quickly as he could but he could not shut out the sour, tearless repetition of the words, "I will not suffer it, Hilary. I will not suffer it again," or the hard rasp of the Doctor's voice in reply. He felt very sorry for Dr. Gentian--Mrs. Gentian had the wreck of what must have been a great beauty. The beauty had gone, but its jealousy, apparently, remained--acrid as the dregs of spoilt incense. Andrew had heard, in books, of the lengths to which such ingrown jealousy may lead very worthy women, and shook his head in wise acknowledgment of the strangeness of existence. It was worse, somehow, that Sparta's mother should yield to such a failing. He could not restrain a natural pity for the unhappy lady, but he felt that in combining Sparta's mother with a jealous wife, she had committed, at the least, a serious breach of taste. He was relieved to find no traces of the quarrel lingering in the air when he came down to the supper-table. Dr. Gentian was pleasanter than usual, if anything, and Mrs. Gentian very composed. He marvelled anew at the deceptiveness of all women but Sparta--he could hardly believe that the cool, terse accents which asked him politely for his verdict on the salad of hearts of cabbage-palm, belonged to the same woman whose voice had been so sere with an exhausted flame a little while ago. Then he was left alone with Dr. Gentian, and it was time for him to put his question. Only now, when the time had come, in spite of any fortification of wine, the question stuck in his throat. "Shall we take our wine into my study?" said Dr. Gentian and rose, "There is a new herbal I should like to show you--the author has some ingenious ideas upon the domestication of the mulberry-tree in these parts." Andrew assented gratefully, grasping at the moment's relief. Besides he took it as a good omen that on this night of all nights, Dr. Gentian should invite him to the seldom-visited chamber which he had always visualized as the hidden brain of the plantation.