S EVERAL months passed, and Mrs. Kenyon remained in confinement. She was not badly treated, except in being vigilantly guarded, and prevented from making her escape. Dr. Fox always treated her with suavity, but she felt that though covered with velvet his hand was of iron, and that there was little to hope for from him. He never made any objection to her writing letters, but always insisted on their being handed to him.

It was not long before she began seriously to doubt whether the letters thus committed to him were really mailed, since no answers came. One day she asked him abruptly:

"Why is it, Dr. Fox, that I get no answers to my letters?"

"I suppose," he answered, "that your friends are afraid you may be excited, and your recovery retarded, by hearing from them."

"Has my—has Mr. Kenyon reported that I am insane?"

"Undoubtedly."

"False and treacherous!" she exclaimed bitterly. "Why was I ever mad enough to marry him?"

Dr. Fox shrugged his shoulders.

"Really," he said, "I couldn\'t pretend to explain your motives, my dear madam. Women are enigmas."

"Are my letters regularly mailed, Dr. Fox?" asked Mrs. Kenyon searchingly.

"How can you ask such a question? Do you not commit them to me?"

"So does Cleopatra," said Mrs. Kenyon, who had fallen into the habit of addressing her room-mate by the name she assumed. "Do you forward her letters to Mark Antony?"

"Does she doubt it?" asked the doctor, bowing to the mad queen.

"No, doctor," replied Cleopatra promptly. "I have the utmost faith in your loyalty, and it shall be rewarded. I have long intended to make you Lord High Baron of the Nile. Let this be the emblem."

In a dignified manner Cleopatra advanced toward Dr. Fox, and passed a bit of faded ribbon through his button-hole.

"Thanks, your Majesty," said the doctor. "Your confidence is not misplaced. I will keep this among my chief treasures."

Cleopatra looked pleased, and Mrs. Kenyon impatient and disgusted.

"He deceives me as he does her, with............