ed mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed
enormous, all swelled and distended with unfertilized eggs. No, there
could be no question concerning the sex of the thing; this was a female,
and her tumefied body was almost bursting with eggs.

In startling design the yellow skull stood out; the ribs of the skeleton.
Two tiny, fiery eyes glimmered at the base of the antennae--two minute
jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent fire. They seemed to be watching her,
maliciously askance.

The very horrid part of it was that, if touched, the creature would cry
out. The girl knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window through
which it must have crawled, and sat down on her bed to consider the
situation.

"After all," she said to herself resolutely. "God made it. It is harmless.
If God thought fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a skeleton,
perhaps it was to remind us that life is brief and that we should lose no
time to live it nobly in His sight.... I think that perhaps explains it."

However, she did not undress.

"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this poor moth. I repeat that I am
foolish. _Allez_--I am _not_ afraid. I am no longer afraid. I--I admire
this handiwork of God."

She sat looking at the creature, her hands lying clasped in her lap.

"It's a very odd thing," she said to herself, "that a lover can find this
creature even if he be miles and miles away.... Maybe he's on his way
now----"

Instinctively she sprang up and closed her bedroom window.

"No," she said, looking severely at the motionless moth, "you shall have
no visitors in my room. You may remain here; I shall not disturb you; and
tomorrow you will go away of your own accord. But I cannot permit you to
receive company----"

A heavy fall on the floor above checked her. Breathless, listening, she
crept to her door.

"Karl!" she called.

Listening again, she could hear distant and vaguely dreadful sounds from
the gardener-student's room above.

She was frightened but she went up. The youth had had a bad hemorrhage.
She sat beside him late into the night. After his breathing grew quieter,
sitting there in silence she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking
sounds from the box of Death's Head chrysalids on the night table beside
his bed.

The pupae of the Death's Head were making merry in anticipation of the
rapidly approaching change--the Great Adventure of their lives--the coming
metamorphosis.

The youth lay asleep now. As she extingui