"A man could do worse than put in three or four weeks here," he said. "Look at that spread of green." He pointed to an expanse of waving grasses, starred with the vari-coloured blossoms of wild flowers. "I was never a lover of nature," said van Heerden, carelessly. Milsom grunted. "You have never been in prison," he said cryptically. "Is it time to give your lady another dose?" "Not for two hours," said van Heerden. "I will play you at piquet." The cards were shuffled and the hands dealt when there was a scamper of feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a soiled white smock and his face was distorted with terror. "M'sieur, m'sieur," he cried, "that imbecile Bridgers!" "What's wrong?" Van Heerden sprang to his feet. "I think he is mad. He is dancing about the grounds, singing, and he has with him the preparation!" Van Heerden rapped out an oath and leapt through the door, the doctor at his heels. They took the short cut and ran up the steps leading from the well courtyard, and bursting through the bushes came within sight of the offender. But he was not dancing now. He was standing with open mouth, staring stupidly about him. "I dropped it, I dropped it!" he stammered. There was no need for van Heerden to ask what he had dropped, for the green lawn which had excited Milsom's admiration was no longer to be seen. In its place was a black irregular patch of earth which looked as though it had been blasted in the furnaces of hell, and the air was filled with the pungent mustiness of decay. CHAPTER XIX OLIVA IS WILLING It seemed that a grey curtain of mist hung before Oliva's eyes. It was a curtain spangled with tiny globes of dazzling light which grew from nothing and faded to nothing. Whenever she fixed her eyes upon one of these it straightway became two and three and then an unaccountable quantity. She felt that she ought to see faces of people she knew, for one half of her brain had cleared and was calmly diagnosing her condition, but doing so as though she were somebody else. She was emerging from a drugged sleep; she could regard herself in a curious impersonal fashion which was most interesting. And people who are drugged see things and people. Strange mirages of the mind arise and stranger illusions are suffered. Yet she saw nothing save this silvery grey curtain with its drifting spots of light and heard nothing except a voice saying, "Come along, come along, wake up." A hundred, a thousand times this monotonous order was repeated, and then the grey curtain faded and she was lying on the bed, her head throbbing, her eyes hot and prickly, and two men were looking down at her, one of them a big barefaced man with a coarse mouth and sunken eyes. "Was it my father really?" she asked drowsily. "I was afraid of that second dose you gave her last night," said Milsom. "You are getting a condition of coma and that's the last thing you want."