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 like a prisoned bird, with helpless flutterings, but it seemed too late now to draw back. Her words by a mystic influence had settled something beyond possibility of recall.

On the stove was a small bowl of polished brass in which water was kept in order to give a certain moisture to the air. Oliver Haddo put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little silver box. He tapped it, with a smile, as a man taps a snuff-box, and opened it. He took an infinitesimal quantity of a blue powder that it contained and threw it on the water in the brass bowl. Immediately a bright flame sprang up, and Margaret gave a cry of alarm. Oliver looked at her quickly and motioned her to remain still. She saw that the water was on fire. It was burning as brilliantly, as hotly as if it were common gas; and it burned with the same dry hoarse roar. Suddenly it was extinguished. She leaned forward and saw that the bowl was empty.

The water had been utterly consumed, as though it were straw, and not a drop remained. She passed her hand absently across her forehead.

“But water cannot burn,” she muttered to herself.

It seemed that Haddo knew what she thought, for he smiled strangely.

“Do you know that nothing more destructive can be invented than this blue powder, and I have enough to burn up all the water in Paris? Who dreamt that water might be burnt like chaff?”

He paused, seeming to forget her presence. He looked thoughtfully at the little silver box.