ar of the great wheels underneath.
His eyes looked hostile and mocking. There was a sort of cold hatred in
them. Sophy shivered.

"Quick, Gaynor," she said; "prepare it quickly."

She went over to her husband.

"Are you suffering, Cecil?" she asked pityingly.

"Like hell," he said.

"I was afraid so. I'm so sorry, dear. Gaynor is going to give you some
medicine at once."

Incredulity, then an almost foolish softness flowed over his face.

"By God, you're an angel!" he stammered. He seized her hand and covered
it with kisses, regardless of the valet's presence. This struck Sophy as
very painful. She flushed, drawing her hand away, and saying again:

"I'm so sorry-- I should have thought of it before. Dr. Hopkins warned
me that the journey might exhaust you."

"And-- I say, Sophy--make it double this time, will you? It will be no
good else. I'm suffering actual pain, as well as from the lack of the
damned stuff. The usual thing won't help me--not the least."

Sophy hesitated. She glanced towards Gaynor. He was holding a spoon
filled with water from a little flask over the flame of a spirit lamp.
He was absorbed in the delicate task and did not see her look. She
glanced back, still doubtful, to her husband. The expression of hatred
had again gathered in his eyes. He closed them, trying to smile. This
smile was like a grimace of pain and anger. Sophy went quickly over to
Gaynor.

"He seems very ill," she murmured. "Might not a little larger dose than
usual be better?"

Gaynor glanced, also, at his master. Then he said:

"Yes, I think in this instance it will be better, madam."

He dissolved a half-grain of morphia, drew it up into the little glass
syringe, and took it over to his master. Chesney had confessed to taking
six grains a day. They had cut this down to half in the past fortnight.
Every four hours now for three days Gaynor had been mixing a quarter of
a grain at each dose. During the coming week this was to be reduced to
an eighth.

Sophy turned aside her head as she saw the man approach Cecil with the
little instrument. She could not shake off the horror with which it
filled her.

She sat and gazed out, unseeing, at the reeling landscape as the train
rushed north--blind to all but the picture that memory painted on the
dim curtain of the present. The train rushed north with the ardour of a
Titan to a tryst. The great engine panted as with passion. Through the
deepening twilight the rolling pas