“Gwendolyn?” Jane held her with doubting eyes.  “I don’t believe it!”

“But I did!”

Jane bent down to the cup, sniffed it, then smelled of the glass.

“Gwendolyn,” she said solemnly, “I know you did not take your medicine.  You poured it into this cup.”

“But I didn’t!”

“I seen.”  Jane pointed an accusing finger.

“How could you?” demanded Gwendolyn.  “You were looking at the brick house.”

“I’ve got eyes in the back of my head.  And I seen you plain when I was lookin’ straight the other way.”

“A-a-aw!” laughed Gwendolyn, skeptically.

“They’re hid by my braids,” went on Jane, “but they’re there.  And I seen you throw away that medicine, you bad girl!” Again she leaned to examine the coffee-cup.

“Miss Royle said you had two faces,” admitted Gwendolyn.  She stared hard at the coiled braids on the back of Jane’s head.  The braids were pinned close together.  No pair of eyes was visible.

Jane straightened resolutely, seized the medicine-bottle and the spoon, poured out a second dose, and proffered it.  “Come, now!” she said firmly.  “You ain’t a-goin’ to git ahead of me with your cuteness.  Take this, and go to sleep.”

“Bu-but—­”

That moment a shrill whistle sounded from the street.

“There now!” cried Jane, triumphantly.  “The policeman’s right here.  I can call him up whenever I like.”

Gwendolyn drank.

Jane tossed the spoon aside, corked the bottle and went back to the open window.  “You go to sleep,” she commanded.

Gwendolyn, lying flat, was murmuring to herself.  “Oo-oo!  How funny!” she said, “Oo-oo!”

“Now, don’t let me hear another word out of you!” warned Jane.

Gwendolyn turned her head slowly from side to side.  A great light of some kind was flaming against her eyes—­a light shot through and through with black, whirling balls.  Where did it come from?

It stayed.  And grew.  Her eyes widened with wonderment.  A smile curved her lips.

Then suddenly she rose to a sitting posture, threw out both arms, and gave a little choking cry.

CHAPTER VIII

It was a cry of amazement.  For suddenly—­so suddenly that she did not have time to think how it had happened—­she found herself up and dressed, and standing alone, gazing about her, in the open air!

But there were no high buildings on any side, no people passing to and fro, no motor-cars flashing by.  And the grass underfoot was not the grass of a lawn, evenly cut and flowerless; it was tall, so that it brushed the hem of her dress, and blossom-dotted.

She looked up at the sky.  It was not the sky of the City, distant, and marbled with streaks of smoke.  It was close and clear; starless, too; and no moon hung upon it.  Yet though it was night there was light everywhere—­warm, glowing, roseate.