“Dear Madame,” she said--“you distress yourself without cause! You need not be afraid of me,--I will do you no harm! As for your son, his fate is in his own hands; he assumes to be master of it. I shall not interfere with him or with you,--for now I shall leave you both for ever! I have submitted myself to his orders,--I have been his paid ‘subject,’ and he cannot complain of any want of obedience on my part,--his experiment has succeeded. Nothing therefore now remains for me to do here, and he has no further need of me. I promise you I will go as quickly as I can!--and if, as you say, I am not human, why so much the worse for humanity!” She smiled, and her attitude and expression were royally triumphant. Madame Dimitrius had reached the door of the apartment, and with her hand leaning against it turned back to look at her in evident terror. Then she essayed to speak again. “I am sorry,” she faltered--“if I seem strange and harsh--but--but you are not Diana May--not the woman I knew! She had grown younger and prettier under my son’s treatment--but you!--you are a mere girl!--and I feel--I know you are not, you cannot be human!” A light of something like scorn flashed from Diana’s eyes. “Is humanity so valuable!” she asked. But this question was more than enough for Madame Dimitrius. With a shuddering exclamation of something like utter despair, she hurriedly opened the door, and stumbled blindly out into the corridor, there to be caught in the arms of her son, who was coming to Diana’s rooms. “Why, mother!” he ejaculated--“what is this?” Diana stood at her half-open door, looking at them both like a young angel at the gate of paradise. “Your mother is frightened of me,” she explained gently. “She says I am not human. I daresay that’s very likely! But do try and comfort her, and tell her that I have no evil intentions towards her or you. And that I am going away as soon as you will allow me to do so.” His brows contracted. “Mother,” he said reproachfully, “is this how you keep your promise to me? I gave you my confidence--you see the full success of my great experiment--and yet you reward me thus?” She clung to him desperately. “Féodor!--Féodor!” she cried--“My son,--my only child! You shall not blame me,--me, your mother! I love you, Féodor!--and love teaches many things! Oh, my son!--you have drawn from your science something that is not of this world!--something that has no feeling--no emotion!--this creature of your making is not Diana!” As she spoke her face grew livid,--she beat the air with her feeble old hands, as though she fought some invisible foe, and fell in a dead faint. Quickly Dimitrius lifted her in his arms, and laid her on the sofa in Diana’s sitting-room. Diana came to his aid, and deftly and tenderly bathed her forehead and hands with cool water. When she showed signs of returning consciousness Diana said whisperingly: