An elderly woman came softly into the room. She wore a blue dress, a white apron, a white kerchief, white cuffs, a white cap. Her face was disfigured by a great brown protruding mole from which a tuft of hair sprouted; she had an expression of methodical kindness, but small shifting eyes in which was no honesty. She carried a cup that smoked. She put the cup on a table, lifted Wilmot to a sitting position, as if he had been a child, and asked him if he was hungry. For a moment he did not answer; he was getting used to the discovery that he had been undressed and was wearing a linen night-gown. Then he nodded toward the smoking cup. "How do I know it isn't poisoned?" "Come--come," said the woman, "you'd have gone out under the chloroform if that had been the intention. Better keep your strength up." After a few spoonfuls of the soup, Wilmot suggested that he should prefer something solid. The woman shook her head. "If I'm to be kept alive," he said petulantly, "why not comfortably?" "Nothing solid. That's the doctor's orders." "Blizzard's?" "No. The doctor." "What doctor?" "Why, Dr. Ferris." "Where is he? I want to speak to him." "He isn't here. He's coming when everything's ready." "Everything ready?" A nameless fear began to gnaw at Wilmot's vitals. And at that moment the door swung open, and he saw, beyond the bulking head and shoulders of the legless man, a narrow iron table, white and shining, in a room all glass and white paint. On the entrance of Blizzard, the woman took up the remains of the soup, and passed noiselessly out of the room. Blizzard climbed to the foot of Wilmot's bed, and sat looking at him. In his eyes there was a glitter of suppressed excitement. "When our last talk was interrupted," he said, "I had just told you that Miss Ferris is a prisoner in this house. You don't like the idea?" Wilmot shuddered and made a convulsive effort to break the handcuffs. He struggled with them in desperate silence for nearly a minute. "I might break them," said Blizzard, "but you can't. Try to be as reasonable as you can. Miss Ferris is in no immediate danger. I am going to let her go, if you and I can agree." "What do you want _me_ to agree to?" "I've had it in mind for a long time. It was why I relieved you of money cares, and sent you West. I wished to put you in a state of perfect health before trying an experiment of the utmost interest and value to science. Only your consent is now wanting. Upon that consent depends Miss Ferris's fate. Refuse and I leave your lover heart to imagine what that fate may be. She is absolutely in my power--absolutely. Do you know her writing?" He smiled a little and held before Wilmot's eyes a sheet of note-paper. "She has just written it," he said, "of her own free will." Wilmot read: "I will marry you, as soon as I know that Wilmot Allen is out of your power and safe in life and limb."