She rose from the table and brought from a small cabinet the morocco case, unopened since Arthur had given it to her. A certain dread and distaste had prevented her examining it. Now she sat down again in her place, a beautiful woman, with the light falling upon her from above, shining upon her golden hair, and bringing out the hues of her sea-blue dress. Her husband watched her as she held the case a moment in her delicate, firm fingers before unclasping it. He had learned within these last weeks that his old love for Helen had re-awakened; or more truly that a new affection had been born. The knowledge had come to him through thinking upon the relations between Helen and Arthur and in speculating concerning her feeling for Grant Herman, and it had been in his mind when he described love as the desire for the impossible. He had determined to speak his passion, but as he looked at his wife sitting within arm's length yet as remote as if half the world lay between them, he hesitated. Helen unclasped the case and lifted the tiny cut-glass vial from its velvet bed. "How extravagant you were in your vial," she said, involuntarily lifting it to her nostrils. "Don't!" Dr. Ashton exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly. "Is it so deadly as that!" she asked in some dismay, holding it off. "It is simply pure prussic acid," he replied. "But it might be loosely stopped." She examined carefully the minute writing engraved upon the glass. "'Death foils the gods,'" she read. "Is it one of your own wickednesses, Will?" "I don't know. By the way, we might send it to Mrs. Fenton now as a souvenir of the two desirable acquaintances she has lost." "What a brood of vipers she must think us, Will. I think it is pathetic, probably; but I cannot help being amused. It is rather an odd sensation to find that instead of being the harmless, insignificant body I have always supposed, I am really a hardened and abandoned reprobate." "Oh, I've always known it, but I did not tell you for fear of destroying your peace of mind." "I'm afraid," sighed Helen, rather absently, "that--if you don't mind the slang--Arthur has an elephant on his hands." "Yes," assented the other, "himself." She laughed musically, toying with the little cut-glass vial. "How familiarity takes away the dread of any thing," she remarked. "We become accustomed to any thing; and, while I dare say it is the shallowest of sophistry, that ought to be an argument in favor of the theory that vice and fearfulness are alike only strangeness." "That is rather a sophistical bit of logic; so perfectly so that it ought to be theology. Excuse me, but could you let me have a morsel of cheese." "There does not seem to be any for you to have," she said, glancing over the table. "Isn't there," returned he, as carelessly as if he had not noted that fact. "It is of no consequence." "Oh, I can easily get it; I suppose Hannah forgot it."