ng--a good thing."

On the table where she had placed the lamp was a tiny bottle marked
"chloral." There was also a glass of water upset upon the table.
Stanwood's clothing and other belongings lay scattered upon the floor.
She had never before seen his room disordered. Well! he was ill, and
here she was to take care of him.

He was not talking so fast now, but what he said was even more
incoherent. The light and the presence of another person in the room
seemed to confuse and trouble him. She took his hand and felt the pulse.
The hand was hot, and grasped hers convulsively. She put his coat over
his shoulders, and then she sat with her arm about him, and gradually he
stopped talking, and turned his face to hers with a questioning look.

"What can I do for you, papa? Tell me if there is anything I can do for
you."

"Do for me?" he repeated.

"Yes, dear. Is there nothing I can do, nothing I can get for you?"

"Get for me?"

He drew off from her a little, and a crafty look, utterly foreign to the
man's nature, came into the tense face.

"I don't suppose you've got a drop of whisky!" he said insinuatingly.

The sound of the word upon his own lips seemed to bring the excitement
back on him. "Whisky! Yes, that's it! I don't care who knows it! Whisky!
Whisky!" He fairly hissed the words.

For the first time since she came into the room Elizabeth was
frightened.

"I think you ought to have a doctor," she said.

She felt him lean against her again, and she gently lowered him to the
pillow. His head sank back, and he lay there with white lips and closed
lids. She knelt beside him, watching his every breath. After a few
minutes he opened his eyes. They were dull, but no longer wild.

"Ought you not to have a doctor, papa dear?" she asked.

Intelligence came struggling back into his face.

"No, my dear," he said, gathering himself for a strong effort. "I have
had attacks like this before."

"And a stimulant is all you need?"

"All I need," he muttered. His eyes closed, and his breath came even and
deep.

Elizabeth knelt there, thankful that he slept. How white his lips were!
How spent he looked! He had asked for whisky. Perhaps even in his
delirium he knew what he wanted; perhaps a stimulant was all he needed.
Of course it was! How stupid not to have understood!

She hurried to her room and got a small brandy-flask that had been given
her for the journey. She had emptied it for a sick man on the train.

S