himself down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly
watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an
afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the
distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships,
coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a
roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of
heat--heat stifling and oppressive. By sheer contrast, Sylvia began to
dream of the cool glaciers; and the Chalet de Lognan suddenly stood
visible before her eyes. She watched the sunlight die off the red rocks
of the Chardonnet, the evening come with silent feet across the snow, and
the starlit night follow close upon its heels; night fled as she dreamed.
She saw the ice-slope on the Aiguille d'Argentiere, she could almost hear
the chip-chip of the axes as the steps were cut and the perpetual hiss as
the ice-fragments streamed down the slope. Then she looked toward Walter
Hine with the speculative inquiry which had come so often into her eyes
of late. And as she looked, she saw him furtively take from a pocket a
tabloid or capsule and slip it secretly into his mouth.

"How long have you been taking cocaine?" she asked, suddenly.

Walter Hine flushed scarlet and turned to her with a shrinking look.

"I don't," he stammered.

"Yet you left a bottle of the drug where I found it."

"That was not mine," said he, still more confused. "That was Archie
Parminter's. He left it behind."

"Yes," said Sylvia, finding here a suspicion confirmed. "But he left
it for you?"

"And if I did take it," said Hine, turning irritably to her, "what can it
matter to you? I believe that what your father says is true."

"What does he say?"

"That you care for Captain Chayne, and that it's no use for any one else
to think of you."

Sylvia started.

"Oh, he says that!"

She understood now one of the methods of the new intrigue. Sylvia was in
love with Chayne; therefore Walter Hine may console himself with cocaine.
It was not Garratt Skinner who suggested it. Oh, no! But Archie Parminter
is invited for the night, takes the drug himself, or pretends to take it,
praises it, describes how the use of it has grown in the West End and
amongst the clubs, and then conveniently leaves the drug behind, and no
doubt supplies it as it is required.

Sylvia began to dilate upon its ill-effects, and suddenly broke off. A
great disgust was