WHEREIN CERTAIN PEOPLE MEET UNEXPECTEDLY Iris came back from the void to find herself lying on a truckle bed in a dimly-lighted hovel.

A cotton wick flickered in a small lamp of the old Roman type.

It was consuming a crude variety of castor oil, and its gamboge-colored flame clothed the smoke-darkened rafters and mud walls in somber yet vivid tints that would have gladdened the heart of a Rubens.

This scenic effect, admirable to an artist, was lost on a girl waking in affright and startled by unfamiliar surroundings.

She gazed up with uncomprehending eyes at two brown-skinned women bending over her.
One, the elder, was chafing her hands; the other, a tall, graceful girl, was stirring something in an earthenware vessel.