lf he was unrecognisable.

The goddess, however, penetrated it as soon as he rejoined her. "Why
have you thus transformed yourself?" she inquired coldly.

"Because," explained Leander, "seeing the police are all on the look-out
for me, I thought it couldn't do any harm."

"It is useless!" she returned.

"To be sure," he agreed blankly, "they'll expect me to go out disguised.
If only they aren't up to the way out by the back! That's our only
chance now."

"Leave all to me," she replied calmly; "with Aphrodite you are safe."

And he never did quite understand how that strange elopement was
effected, or even remember whether they left the house from the front or
rear. The statue glided swiftly on, and, grasping a corner of her robe,
he followed, with only the vaguest sense of obstacles overcome and
passed as in a dream.

By the time he had completely regained his senses he was in a crowded
thoroughfare, which he recognised as the Gray's Inn Road.

A certain scheme from which, desperate as it was, he hoped much, might
be executed as well here as elsewhere, and he looked about him for the
aid on which he counted.

"Where, then, lives the wise man whom you would consult?" said
Aphrodite.

Leander went on until he could see the coloured lights of a chemist's
window, and then he said, "There--right opposite!"

He felt strangely nervous himself, but the goddess seemed even more so.
She hung back all at once, and clutched his arm in her marble grasp.

"Leander," she said, "I will not go! See those liquid fires glowing in
lurid hues, like the eyes of some dread monster! This test of yours is
needless, and I fear it."

"Lady Venus," he said earnestly, "I do assure you they're only big
bottles, and quite harmless too, having water in them, not physic.
You've no call to be alarmed."

She yielded, and they crossed the road. The shop was small and
unpretending. In the window the chief ornaments were speckled plaster
limbs clad in elastic socks, and photographs of hideous complaints
before and after treatment with a celebrated ointment; and there were
certain trophies which indicated that the chemist numbered dentistry
among his accomplishments.

Inside, the odour of drugs prevailed, in the absence of the subtle
perfume that is part of the fittings of a fashionable apothecary, and on
the very threshold the goddess paused irresolute.

"There is magic in the air," she exclaimed, "and fearful poisons. This
man is some