n the room where the dive-keeper lay in stupor Elsie spread a quilt
on the floor and went wearily to her broken rest.

When she awoke Druce was trying nervously to roll a cigarette. The paper
broke.

"Here, you, it's morning. It's time you woke up. Take this money. Get me
some cigarettes. I can't roll them."

He was a being frightening to see by this time. The morphine and the
French poison had torn his nerves to fragments. His eyes glared like
coals in his pasty white face.

Elsie did not try to talk to him. She saw that he was beyond that. She
took some money from the table and went out again to buy the cigarettes
and food. When she returned Druce refused to eat. He took up the bottle
of absinthe and drank from it, swallowing the burning liquid with
animal-like gulps that made Elsie shudder.

"You'll kill yourself," said Elsie. "Take some of this milk."

"Mind your own damn business," returned Druce, hoarsely. "You stick to
milk. I'll stick to absinthe."

Again he lay down and again he slept. The long day passed. Night came and
with a wild wind and a beating rain.

Druce woke in a half delirium.

"More absinthe, more absinthe," he muttered. The bottle on the table was
empty. "Why didn't you have another bottle here? What have you been
doing, eh?"

"Do you think you better take any more?" asked Elsie.

Druce stood glaring at her. His eyes flamed as he rushed across the room
like a madman. Before she could get out of his way he struck her a brutal
blow that felled her to the floor, and kicked her as she struggled. He
reached for the empty bottle and brandished it over her.

"Damn you, get out of here quick and get me that dope!"

Elsie got to her feet.

"I'll go," she said, faintly.

CHAPTER XXVII

HARVEY SPENCER TAKES UP THE TRAIL

Harvey had waited about the jail for days. He was certain that Elsie
Welcome would return to Druce, and he was resolved to make a great effort
to induce her to leave him.

In his unsubtle makeup the measure of his devotion was as great as the
measure of his unspoiled manhood. The girl he wished to make his wife had
been taken from him. She had removed herself far from his kindness and
care, but he could not cease to offer her the care she needed more
poignantly than before.

The personal interest of so conspicuous a person as Mary Randall, in
Elsie's case, had undoubtedly urged Harvey on--when otherwise he migh