he said. Yet there was something of alarm, too, in his
quiet face. They waited a few seconds. Then Chesney's lips again just
formed the word that he seemed no longer able to utter.

"Oh, _try_ the brandy--just try it!" Gerald said again.

Sophy looked at Gaynor. His eyes were on his master's face.

"Gaynor--do you think? Might we?"

"I hardly know what to say, madam."

"Here! I'll give it him-- I'll risk it," said Gerald. He thrust his arm
under his brother's neck, and held the little glass of spirit to his
lips. Chesney drank feebly. Some of the brandy ran from the corner of
his mouth.

"Here! fill it again!" said Gerald imperiously to Gaynor. Like all
superficially timid people, he was overbold once his timidity was
conquered.

The valet looked at Sophy before obeying. She did not see this look. She
was staring at Cecil's face. The thought had come to her: "Is it all
_real_? Is he _really_ as ill as he seems?"

Gaynor had no course but to obey Lord Wychcote. He merely said very low
as he poured out the brandy:

"The doctor says it's very bad for him, your lordship."

But Gerald was past heeding such warnings. His usually rough, almost
brutal, brother had spoken to him with peculiar kindness only a few
moments ago. Now he lay there looking as though death had seized him.
Gerald had felt that presentiment of his death. He could not stand
inertly by, while others trifled with the red-tape of doctors' orders.
He gave Cecil the second glass of brandy. Every drop was swallowed this
time. The delicious fire burned its pleasant path to the very pit of the
craving stomach. Cecil felt that he really loved his brother. He lifted
his languid lids and gave him a look of grateful affection.

Lady Wychcote still stood by the tea-table, her handkerchief against her
lips. She had not moved a muscle during this scene.

Of all those present, she was the only one who, from first to last, had
felt sure that the attack was simulated. She was torn between
humiliation that a son of hers should condescend to such mummery, and an
odd, unwilling admiration for the skill with which it was done.

"He always had the will of demons," she told herself now. "I must put
Bellamy on his guard." It was perhaps natural that, with her ignorance
in regard to the habit of morphia, she should find this deadly
determination to procure spirits far more alarming. Her youngest
brother, a brilliant man, had drunk himself to death at forty-one.

Ye