altered its angle a little, and had moved a little to the left. It was
passing, in fairly regular sweeps, from a point rather more than five
feet from the ground, in a direction roughly vertical, to another point a
few inches below the level of the chest of drawers.

Oleron continued to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand
in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removed
his waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing did
not cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled.
The next was very cunning--

"Hm!... _I think I'll read for a quarter of an hour_," he said aloud....

He passed out of the room.

He was away a couple of minutes; when he returned again the room was
suddenly quiet. He glanced at the chest of drawers; the comb lay still,
between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves. Without
hesitation Oleron put out his hand and picked it up. It was an ordinary
eighteenpenny comb, taken from a card in a chemist's shop, of a substance
of a definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion against
the Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbits
through the void. Oleron put it down again; then he glanced at the bundle
of papers he held in his hand. What he had gone to fetch had been the
fifteen chapters of the original _Romilly_.

"Hm!" he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair.... "As I
thought.... She's just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous."

* * * * *