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204 Mrs. Plimsoll brought in a telegram. It was from Angel, and ran:

Weather bad; cannot paint; returning Waterloo 12.1.

A thrill of pleasure at the thought of seeing her so soon set me veritably quivering. Then I could have wished that she had stayed at Hardstone a little longer to watch the march of events. I did not tell Chelubai that she was returning that morning; I wanted to have her all to myself. Presently Bottiger came in, and I saw at once that he, too, was overcome by sorrow at their failure to remove Mrs. Jubb.

However, he said, with a very fair affectation of brave indifference: "So we didn't kill the old beast after all." And then he added, with a sudden change to a very natural resentment, "And I made myself devilishly uncomfortable all for nothing! The smell of that rotten anæsthetic is in my nose still!"

"Confound the anæsthetic!" I said, with some heat. I had heard enough of it.

"She seemed dead enough, too. How did she recover?" he said; and then he added, with a cold determination, "When are we to have another go at her?"

"Never!" I cried, stirred to my inmost depths by the absurd suggestion. "For evermore Mrs. Jubb is sacrosant [sic] to us. She would be on her