“That’s it! Doctor, you may thank your stars that your first test has succeeded! Here I am, living!--and _something_ is dancing about in my veins like a new sort of air and a new sort of sunshine! It’s a lovely feeling!” He rose from the chair where he had thrown himself in his momentary dejection, and approaching her, took her hand and laid his fingers on her pulse. He had entirely recovered his usual air of settled and more or less grave composure. “Yes,” he said, after a pause, “your pulse is firmer--and _younger_. So far, so good! Now, obey me. Go and lie down in your own room for a couple of hours. Sleep, if you can,--but, at any rate, keep in a recumbent position. You have a charming view from your windows,--and even in a grey autumn twilight like this, there is something soothing in the sight of the Alpine snow-line. Rest absolutely quiet till dinner time. And--afterwards--you will tell me how you feel,--or, rather, I shall be able to judge for myself.” He released her hand, but before doing so, kissed it with a Russian’s usual courtesy. “I repeat,--you are a brave woman!--as brave as any philosopher that ever swallowed hemlock! And, if your courage holds out sufficiently to endure the whole of my experiment, I shall owe you the triumph and gratitude of a life-time!” CHAPTER XII Once in her own pretty suite of rooms, Diana locked the door of the _entresol_, so that no one might enter by chance. She wished to be alone that she might collect her thoughts and meditate on the “narrow escape” which she had experienced without actually realising any danger. Her sitting-room was grey with the creeping twilight, and she went to the window and opened it, leaning out to breathe the snowy chillness of the air which came direct from the scarcely visible mountains. A single pale star twinkled through the misty atmosphere, and the stillness of approaching night had in it a certain heaviness and depression. With arms folded on the window-sill she looked as far as her eyes could see--far enough to discern the glimmering white of the Savoy Alps which at the moment presented merely an outline, as of foam on the lip of a wave. After a few minutes she drew back and shut the window, pulling the warm tapestry curtains across it, and pressing the button which flooded her room with softly-shaded electric light. Then she remembered--she had been told to rest in a recumbent position, so, in obedience to this order she lay down on the comfortable sofa provided for her use, stretching herself out indolently with a sense of delightful ease. She was not at all in a “lazing” mood, and though she tried to go to sleep she could not. “I’m broad awake,” she said to herself. “And I want to think! It isn’t a case of ‘mustn’t think’ now--I feel I _must_ think!” And the first phase of her mental effort was her usual one of “wonder.” Why had she so much confidence in Dimitrius? How was it that she was quite ready to sacrifice herself to his “experiment”?