ng to save you! You hear that?"

She went closer to him--a little, furious figure, quivering with
righteous rage.

"D'you think I'm afraid of you? Not much I ain't! Just look at me and
tell me what you think about it."

Chesney sat hypnotised. Here was the Mongoose to his Serpent with a
vengeance. Something began to rise slowly up in him--something clear and
clean rising from the dregs of his stupefied better nature. It was that
unwilling meed of admiration that the conquered pay to a courageous foe.
Suddenly he laughed. It was a shocking sight and sound, this hoarse,
weak laughter issuing from that grey, sweating face.

"By God! You little Bush-Ranger, you've got guts!" he gasped.

Anne was changed, as St. Paul says the redeemed will be changed, in the
twinkling of an eye. It was the psychological moment. It came
differently to different patients, and she arrived at it by varying
methods, but it always came when Nurse Harding was on a case.

Her rigid figure relaxed, her little face softened with her childlike
smile.

"See here. I'm your _friend_," she said. "Your _friend_, man; not your
enemy. Now you just 'fess up, as the children say. Tell me _really_ how
much of the stuff you're in the habit of taking, and I'll make you comfy
with a dose in proportion, right away--this very minute. I won't wait
for doctor's orders or anything. Will you tell me? Eh?"

Her voice was too pretty for words, thus wheedling and coaxing the huge
man. So might Jenny Wren chuck and chirp to some big Cuckoo-bastard, to
venture from the nest that her kind step-motherhood had provided.

Chesney was at that point in the fight when even a great lad will sob
sometimes from sheer rage and exhaustion. He sank back, pulling up the
sheet about his face so as to hide it from her.

Anne slipped the hypodermic case from her pocket, opened it, and went
over beside him.

"Now, then ... now, then," she coaxed, like some one gentling a
fractious horse. "See--here's the blessed, devilish old stuff. _I_ know
how you're craving it--damn it for a nasty half-breed of saint and
fiend! It's here--right here in my hand. Only tell me--_the
truth_--about how much you've been giving yourself, and I swear to you
as I'm an honest human, I'll give you enough to ease you."

There was a silence. Then from under the lifted sheet came the words:

"Twelve grains a day."

"In the twenty-four hours?"

"Yes."

"That's really all?... I'm asking for your own sak