even by mouth. She would have
seen instantly--and nosed out the precious stuff that was his dearest
earthly possession. He was quite sure of that. It cowed him from taking
the morphia that he had secreted, even during those times of anguish,
when sometimes she stepped into the next room for a moment to fetch
something and he could have swallowed a tablet easily--it was within
reach always. No; he did not dare for the sake of one moment's
self-indulgence, to run the risk of still greater sufferings. So he lay
there, enduring, cursing silently, waiting, ever waiting, for the time
to come when he should be his own man again. Then hey! for some distant
country--a long journey _en garcon_--with a glittering, brand-new
needle, and package on package of the little flat, white,
innocent-looking tablets that dissolved so easily in a teaspoonful of
warm water.

There were no more drives now: he was too weak. Anne said that in about
six weeks he would begin to feel more normal, though he would still be
weak. He would feel depressed and weak for a long time after his system
was rid of the poison, she warned him with her admirable frankness. Six
weeks more of it! Good God! He wondered that he could keep his hands
from her when she said such things to him in that matter-of-fact, casual
way. But he waited. Chance was a good deity for such as he to pray to.
One never knew what might happen. So he lay there and said curt, impious
prayers to Chance that the God of Whimsy would help him to his own
undoing.

Chance himself serves sometimes one Overlord, sometimes another.
Sometimes he plays henchman to Ormuzd, sometimes to Ahriman. This time
he elected to do the bidding of Ahriman.

On the fifteenth day after Chesney's enforced confession to the little
nurse, there came a wire from London for Anne Harding. It said:

"_Your mother ill--pneumonia. Come at once._"

There was nothing else for it. She had to go, and by the next train. She
loved her mother, whom she supported by her cleverness, very dearly; yet
there was almost an equal grief in her strongly professional little
heart at leaving a case so difficult, which she had managed with such
skill.

She tried to get Chesney to promise her on his word of honour to "act
straight" with the nurse who would supplant her, promising that if he
did so she would return as soon as her mother was well enough, and take
up his case again. But he would only smile at her that faintly jeering
smi