vellous; and Laurence tried
to shake off a morbid wonder whether there might be any obscure and
inscrutable survival from one generation to another across the seas
and across the years.

"If you remember the picture," said John Manning, "perhaps you
remember the quaint goblet of Venetian glass I bought the same day?"

"Of course I do," said Larry, glad to get Manning started on a topic
of talk a little less personal.

"Perhaps you know what has become of it?" asked Manning.

"I can answer 'of course' to that, too," replied Larry, "because I
have it here."

"Here?"

"Here--in a little square box, in the hall," answered Larry. "I had it
in my trunk, you know, when we took passage on the _Vanderbilt_ at
Havre that May morning. I forgot to give it to you in the hurry of
landing, and I haven't had a chance since. This is the first time I
have seen you for nearly three years. I found the box this morning,
and I thought you might like to have it again, so I brought it up."

John Manning rang the bell at the head of his bed. The black crone
answered it, and soon returned with the little square box. Manning
impatiently broke the seals and cords that bound its cover and began
eagerly to release the goblet from the cotton and tissue paper in
which it had been carefully swathed and bandaged. Mrs. Manning, though
her moods were subtler and more intense, showed an anxiety to see the
goblet quite as feverish as her husband's. In a minute the last
wrapping was twisted off and the full beauty of the Venetian glass was
revealed to them. Assuredly no praise was too loud for its delicate
and exquisite workmanship.

"Does Mrs. Manning know the story of the goblet?" asked Larry; "has
she been told of the peculiar virtue ascribed to it?"

"She has too great a fondness for the horrible and the fantastic not
to have heard the story in its smallest details," said Manning.

Mrs. Manning had taken the glass in her fine, thin hands. Evidently it
and its mystic legend had a morbid fascination for her. A strange
light gleamed in her wondrous eyes, and Laughton was startled again to
see the extraordinary resemblance between her and the picture they had
looked at on the day the goblet had been bought.

"When the poison was poured into it," she said at last, with quick and
restless glances at the two men, "the glass broke--then the tale was
true?"

"It was a coincidence only, I'm afraid," said her husband, who had
rallied and regained st