She vanished with noiseless tread among the stiff ranks of figures. Gilbert walked slowly down his own path, looking into each face in turn. . . . This fat matronly woman, a sort of respectable Mrs. Gamp who probably went regularly to Church, was a celebrated baby farmer. She "made angels" by pressing a gimlet into the soft skulls of her charges--there was the actual gimlet--and save for a certain slyness, she had the face of a quite motherly old thing. Yet she, too, had dropped through the hole in the floor--like all her companions here. . . . He turned away from all the faces with an impatient shudder. He ought never to have come here. He was a donkey ever to have let Rita come here. Where was she?--he was to meet her at the end of this horrid avenue. . . . But the place was large. Rita had disappeared among the waxen ghosts. The door must be this way. . . . He pressed onwards, walking silently--as one does in a place of the dead--but disregarding with averted eyes, the leers, the smiles, the complacent appeal, of the murderers who had paid their debt to the justice of the courts. He was beginning to be most unpleasantly affected. Walking onwards, he suddenly heard Rita's voice. It was higher in key than usual--whom was she speaking to? His steps quickened. . . . "Gilbert, how silly to try and frighten me! It's not cricket in this horrid place, get down at once--oh!" The girl shrieked. Her voice rang through the vault-like place. Gilbert ran, turned a corner, and saw Rita. She was swaying from side to side. Her face was quite white, even the lips were bloodless. She was staring with terrified eyes to where upon the low dais and behind the confining rail a figure was standing--a wax-work figure. Gilbert caught the girl by the hands. They were as cold as ice. "Dear!" he said in wild agitation. "What is it? I'm here, don't be frightened. What is it, Rita?" She gave a great sob of relief and clung to his hands. A trace of colour began to flow into her cheeks. "Thank goodness," she said, gasping. "Oh, Gilbert, I'm a fool. I've been so frightened." "But, dear, what by?" "By that----" She pointed at the big, still puppet immediately opposite her. Gilbert turned quickly. For a moment he did not understand the cause of her alarm. "I talked to _it_," she said with an hysterical laugh. "I thought _it_ was you! I thought you'd got inside the railing and were standing there to frighten me." Gilbert looked closely at the effigy. He was about to say something and then the words died away upon his lips. It was as though he saw himself in a distorting glass--one of those nasty and reprehensible toys that fools give to children sometimes. There was an undeniable look of him in the staring face of coloured wax. The clear-cut lips were there. The shape of the head was particularly reminiscent, the growing corpulence of body was indicated, the hair of the stiff wig waved as Lothian's living hair waved.