“Be silent!” exclaimed Master Simon, angrily.
Lady Lochore did not answer, for she was seized with laughter.
“Dear father,” insisted Ellinor. She had come round to the old man and had laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder, “I have nothing but mistrust for your new Elixir. You have taught me too much for me not to realise its danger. If you were not now under its influence yourself, I know you would see it too. Even a mere infusion of the leaves has so strange an effect, that I have ceased—forgive me, dear—to let the villagers have it.”
The simpler threw off her touch in high displeasure.
“A woman all over!” he muttered. “Fool indeed that I was to think there could be an exception to the ineptitude of the sex! A pretty helpmate for a man of science! But I went myself to the village to-day. Aye!” the fanatic light once more shone under the white eyebrows. “There were many who needed it. Wait, Ellinor, wait! My discovery shall speak for itself—shall refute——”
“Good God!” cried Mrs. Marvel, aghast, and turned instinctively to Lady Lochore, “what will be the outcome of this?”
Lady Lochore laughed again.
“Mrs. Marvel,” she gibed, “has developed all of a sudden a mighty dread of scientific investigation. Out upon such paltry spirit! She should take a lesson by my valour, should she not, most wise and excellent alchemist? And if a little mistake does occur now and again, ’tis but the more instructive, all in the interest of mankind. Now, Mistress Marvel, would not that console you?”
Still clasping her hand over the phial in her breast, Lady Lochore now moved towards the door—slowly, for the little voice within was beginning to speak again, and she had to listen as she went. There was a new jingle rustling in her brain:
“Ten drops madness