“I wrote it,” she said. “How droll it seems that you should know my handwriting and not know me! And I thought you would be so pleased!--you, who said I was going to be ‘a wonderful creature,’ and that ‘Cinderella should go to the Prince’s Ball!’ And now you won’t recognise me!--it’s just as if you were ‘jealous because I’m pretty!’ I may as well explain before I go, that Dr. Dimitrius, for whom I’ve been working all the year, is one of those scientific ‘cranks’ who think they can restore lost youth, create beauty and prolong life--like Faust, you know! He wanted a subject to practise upon,--and as I was no earthly use to anyone, he took _me_! And he’s turned me out as you see me--all new and fresh as the morning! And I believe I shall last a long while!” But here Sophy Lansing uttered a half suppressed scream. “Go away!” she gasped--“You--you are a mad girl! You’ve escaped from some asylum!--I’m sure you have!” With swift dignity Diana drew herself up and gazed full and pitifully at her quondam friend. “Poor Sophy!” she said--“I’m sorry for you! I thought you had more character--more self-control! I am not mad--I am far saner than you are. I have told you the truth--and one more thing I can tell you--that I have lost all power to be hurt or offended or disappointed, so you need not think your failure to believe me or your loss of friendship causes me the least pain! I have gone beyond all that. You are keeping the door closed,--will you let me pass?” Really frightened and trembling violently, Sophy Lansing moved cautiously to one side, and as cautiously opened the door. Her scared eyes followed every movement of the graceful, aerial girl-figure which professed to be Diana’s, and she shrank away from the brilliant glance of the heavenly dark blue eyes that rested upon her with such almost angelic compassion. She heard a softly breathed “Good-bye!” and a gentle sweep of garments, then--a pause, and Diana was gone. She rushed to the window. Yes,--there was the taxi waiting,--another minute, and she saw her girl visitor enter it. The vehicle soon disappeared, its noisy grind and whir being rapidly lost in the roar of the general traffic. “It was not--it could not have been Diana!” almost sobbed Sophy to herself. “I felt--oh, yes!--I felt it was something not quite human!” Then, turning to the table where the watch-bracelet had been left, she took it up. It was indubitably her bracelet, with her monogram in small rubies and diamonds on the back of the watch. She had certainly lent it--almost given it--to Diana, and she herself was wearing Diana’s own watch which Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May had given her as “a souvenir of our darling child!” It was all like a wild dream!--where had this girl come from?