g. He drank languidly at first; then
greedily.

She left him lying, and set about to tidy the room. Thrusting her curly
head from the door, she sent Gaynor for warm water, fresh bed-linen, and
pyjamas. When she dressed him and made up the bed, she sat down beside
him with businesslike fingers on his pulse, and her eyes on the
bracelet-watch.

She then fed him half a glass of hot milk as she had fed him the brandy,
and waited patiently. In ten minutes he was asleep again.

When Lady Wychcote heard that her son had admitted Nurse Harding to his
room and was sleeping again after taking some nourishment, she felt
immensely encouraged and relieved. Anne left her this happy illusion,
but with Sophy she was perfectly frank.

"He's got what we nurses sometimes call a 'wet brain,' Mrs. Chesney.
That means _delirium tremens_ to a greater or less degree. He must have
been sopping up that spirit like a sponge, long before Gaynor suspected
him. I fancy we'll have lively times for the next week or so."

This diagnosis proved correct. For three nights and days Nurse Harding
scarcely slept, though another nurse was wired for, to be under her
orders.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, when Chesney was sleeping under the
influence of a moderate dose of morphia, Anne left Nurse Hawkins in
charge, and went to Sophy's room. Her little face looked bleached rather
than pale. Her skin was so swarthy that it could never reach actual
pallor. It looked to-day like an autumn leaf that has been bleached by
the following season's rains and suns. In answer to Sophy's exclamation
of sympathy, she sank down upon a chair, saying:

"Yes, I _am_ rather done, Mrs. Chesney--just for the moment, you know.
I'm going to turn in for a four hours' sleep now. That will set me up
again. But somehow I can't rest well, for thinking of where that extra
morphia can be hidden. I feel such a fool about it, Mrs. Chesney. It's
my _duty_ to find it. I feel a regular amateur--a duffer----"

"Oh, dear Nurse Harding! How can you feel so?" asked Sophy warmly. "It
would baffle any one--any one!"

Anne took her peaked little face between her brown fists, resting her
elbows on her knees, and shaking her head disconsolately.

"I've been called 'Miss Sherlock Holmes' in my day," she admitted
ruefully. "But I rather think my day's gone by. May I sit with you and
puzzle over it a bit, before going for my sleep?"

Sophy made her warmly welcome. She even urged the little