nger."

"Which she will not believe, because she knows that I have the power to
lock you up indefinitely. Besides, if you live to explain matters,
there will be no necessity; but suppose you do not? You are running
into the jaws of an awful danger, and if--"

His frank, pleasant countenance clouded, he gnawed his mustache, and
the question ended in a long sigh. After a moment, a low, sweet voice
completed the sentence:

"If I should die, your tender-hearted wife is so truly and faithfully
my friend, that she could not regret to hear I have entered into my
rest."

There was a brief silence, during which the physician crossed the
floor, opened a glass door and surveyed the stock of drugs. When he
came back, and took up the pestle, he spoke with solemn emphasis:

"This is the most malignant type of an always dangerous disease that I
have ever encountered; and constant exposure to it, without the
careful, persistent use of tonic and disinfectant precautions, would be
tantamount to walking unvaccinated into a pest-house, where people were
dying of confluent small-pox. I have no desire to frighten, but it is
proper that I should warn you; and insist upon the duty of watching
your own health as closely as the symptoms of the victims you are
desirous of nursing. Will you follow the regimen I shall prescribe for
yourself?"

"Implicitly."

The warden finished filling the capsules, rose and looked at his watch.

"As far as the chances go, it is 'heads I win, tails you lose'; and
sorry enough I am to see you come down and dare the pestilence; but
since you are, I might as well say what I was asked to tell you last
night. For your sake I kept silent; now since you persist, I wash my
hands of all responsibility for the consequences. You have heard the
history of the woman Iva Le Bougeois, better known in the 'walls' as
the 'Bloody Duchess'. Two days ago the scourge struck her down; she is
very ill, the worst symptoms have appeared, and she is almost frantic
with terror. Last night, at 12 o'clock, I was going the rounds of the
sick wards, and found her wringing her hands, and running up and down
the cell like a maniac. I tried to quiet and encourage her, but she
paid no more attention than if stone deaf; and when I started to leave
her, she seized my arm, and begged me to ask you to come and stay with
her. She thinks if you would sing for her, she could listen, and forget
the horrible things that haunt her. It is positively