rong medicine that you always give him? Why did you give
it to him that way? Can't he swallow?"

"He is quite unconscious, madam. Nitro-glycerine is a powerful
heart-tonic. The heart action was very bad. But it is better now,
madam."

These "madams" of the valet were beginning to fret Sophy cruelly. They
were like the _toc-toc_ of a sort of irregular metronome, beating out of
time to the jangled clamour of her thoughts. They seemed almost like a
respectful mockery of her hesitation. But she only hesitated because of
the violent hatred with which Chesney always mentioned physicians of any
kind. He had said not once, but on many different occasions, words of
this description:

"By God! The unpardonable sin against _me_ would be the foisting on me
one of those damned fakirs when I was helpless and couldn't throttle
him. The mother that bore me couldn't hand me over to a medical ghoul
with impunity. So remember--no doctors! I die or I live--but no
doctors!"

Then all at once her mind seemed to open like a book that has been
closed, and opens of itself at a certain page. On this page of her
suddenly opened mind Sophy read as in a neat, short sentence: "This man
thinks it very peculiar that you do not ask to see your husband."

She got to her feet, drawing the folds of her dressing-gown about her.

"I wish to see Mr. Chesney," she said, in measured, stilted tones.

"Very good, madam."

He held the door open for her to pass through, then closed it
noiselessly, and followed her with soundless footsteps along the
corridor.

The shutters of Chesney's room were closed, but the curtains were not
drawn. A night-light burnt behind a screen. Sophy went to the foot of
the bed and stood looking down on her husband. In the moderate light she
saw his face, bluish and dusky against the white pillow. He was
breathing harshly but regularly. His lips--those lips which she had last
seen framing a deadly insult--were parted, and seemed as though pasted
against his teeth.

She commanded herself, and moving round to the side of the bed, leaned
over and put her hand on his forehead. It was dry, like rough paper, and
very hot.

What she felt as she bent over him she could not tell. Perhaps more than
anything that though he was so huge and fierce a man, he had now only
herself and a valet to help him in his helplessness.

She stood thus a moment, then left the room, beckoning Gaynor to follow
her. When they were outside, she said: