"You've saved her," she cried. "I'm crazy--stark crazy, I guess. What was it I said? I was going to take her where she'd have to scrub dirty marble floors forever and ever. I'd like to save her soul, she tried so hard to save mine. But it was time thrown away from the start. I was born bad--a moral pervert, as the doctors call it. Christianity was wasted on me." She shook her head, and looked from one to the other. They, horrified but spellbound, waited, uncertain what course to pursue. Mrs. Wilson, now that she had partially recovered her poise, felt the impulse to elucidate this horrifying mystery. But though she wished to speak, the proper language did not suggest itself. How could one discuss causes with a mad woman? She raised her hands to put in place the tiara which had been crushed down on her brow. "Look at her," cried Loretta, commandingly, addressing Constance and pointing. "Isn't she beautiful? She's civilization." She made a low obeisance. "I was in love with her once; I love her still. You saved her." She frowned and passed her hand across her forehead as though to clear her brain. Then she laughed again; she had recovered her clew. "You were the sort she could help, Constance Stuart; you were good. But how has she--her church--paid you back? Cheated you with a gold brick. Ha! Made you believe that it was your Christian duty to let Gordon Perry, Esq., Counsellor-at-Law, go. That's the way the aristocrats still try to fool the common people. But isn't she beautiful? My compliments to both of you." She swept a low courtesy in exaggeration of those she had witnessed a few hours earlier. "It is pitiful--pitiful and perplexing," murmured Mrs. Wilson in agonized dismay. For a moment Loretta stood irresolute, then of a sudden she began to shiver like one seized with an ague. She regarded them distractedly with staring eyes, and throwing up her hands, fell forward on her face in convulsive delirium. Constance rushed to her side; the two women raised her and laid her on the bed. Mrs. Wilson's maid was aroused, and a physician communicated with by telephone. He came within an hour and prescribed the necessary treatment. He said that the patient's system was saturated with cocaine, but intimated that she would probably recover from this attack.