ly she danced round the room with much grace and _abandon_, while
Merton, smoking in an arm-chair that had lost a castor, gently applauded
the performance.

'You have your idea?' he asked.

'I have it. Happy ending! Hurrah!'

Miss Martin spun round like a dancing Dervish, and finally fell into
another arm-chair, overcome by the heat and the intoxication of genius.

'We owe a candle to Saint Alexander Borgia!' she said, when she recovered
her breath.

'Miss Martin,' said Merton gravely, 'this is a serious matter. You are
not going, I trust, to poison the lemons for the elder Mr. Warren's lemon
squash? He is strictly Temperance, you know.'

'Poison the lemons? With a hypodermic syringe?' asked Miss Martin. 'No;
that is good business. I have made one of my villains do _that_, but
that is not my idea. Perfectly harmless, my idea.'

'But sensational, I fear?' asked Merton.

'Some very cultured critics might think so,' the lady admitted. 'But I
am sure to succeed, and I hear the merry, merry wedding bells of the
Bulcester tabernacle ringing a peal for the happy pair.'

'Well, what is the plan?'

'That is my secret.'

'But I _must_ know. I am responsible. Tell me, or I telegraph to Mr.
Warren: "Lecturer never vaccinated; sorry for my mistake."'

'That would not be true,' said Miss Martin.

'A noble falsehood,' said Merton.

'But I assure you that if my plan fails no harm can possibly be caused or
suspected. And if it succeeds then the thing is done: either Mr. Warren
is reconciled to the marriage, or--the marriage is broken off, as he
desires.'

'By whom?'

'By the Conscientious Objectrix, if that is the feminine of Objector--by
Miss Jane Truman.'

'Why should Jane break it off if the old gentleman agrees?'

'Because Jane would be a silly girl. Mr. Merton, I will promise you one
thing. The plan shall not be tried without the approval of the lover
himself. None but he shall be concerned in the affair.'

'You won't hypnotise the girl and let him vaccinate her when she is in
the hypnotic sleep?'

'No, nor even will I give her a post-hypnotic suggestion to vaccinate
herself, or go to the doctor's and have it done when she is awake;
though,' said Miss Martin, 'that is not bad business either. I must make
a note of that. But I can't hypnotise anybody. I tried lots of girls
when I was at St. Ursula's and nothing ever came of it. Thank you for
the idea all the same. By the way, I first mus