but we poor wretches can't always choose our
heavens."

"Nor our hells!" He still spoke vehemently. "Yes, there are times in all
our lives when oblivion, forgetfulness, seems very desirable, very
alluring. But let me entreat you, Mrs. Carstairs, not to seek to enter
Paradise by that devil's key!"

Her almond-shaped eyes grew still more narrow as she looked at him.

"I wonder why you speak so impressively," she said slowly. "As a doctor
doubtless you are _au fait_ in the subject, yet your vehemence seems to
imply----" She paused.

"As a doctor I've seen enough of the havoc the opium fiend plays in the
lives of men--and women," he said steadily, "to realize the danger that
lies in the insidious habit. I have seen women--women like you"--he had
no idea of sparing her--"young, of good position and all the rest of it,
who have slid into the deadly thing on the flimsiest of pretexts--and
then, too late, have realized they are bound--for life--with fetters
which cannot be broken."

"Yet the deadly thing is fascinating, isn't it? Else why do so many fall
under its sway?"

"Fascinating?" With an inward shudder Anstice recalled those months
after Hilda Ryder's death--those horrible, chaotic months when, in a
vain endeavour to stifle thought, to deaden remorse, he had invoked the
aid of the poppy, and by so doing had almost precipitated a moral
catastrophe which should have been more overwhelming than the first.
"For God's sake, Mrs. Carstairs, don't become obsessed by that idea. The
morphia habit is one degrading slavery of mind and body, and only the
miserable victims know how delusive are its promises, how unsatisfactory
its rewards. What can you expect from a cult whose highest reward--the
only thing, indeed, it has to offer you, is--oblivion?"

Chloe Carstairs did not reply. Instead, she turned away and moved across
the room to a small black escritoire which stood against the white wall.
Bending down she opened it, and after pressing a spring, released what
appeared to be a secret drawer. From this she lifted out a little packet
wrapped in white paper and sealed with red wax, and holding it in her
hand she came slowly back to where Anstice stood, made vaguely
uncomfortable by her curious, almost secretive manner.

"Dr. Anstice"--she held out the packet--"will you take charge of this
for me? It is the key--what you called the devil's key just now--to the
Paradise I have never had the courage to enter."

Anstice took