g anything, the big eyes
debated steadfastly, and the long, slender fingers ran down the beard
softly. At times there was a deep meditativeness in the eye, again a
dusky fire. But there was a certain charm through it all--a languid
precision, a slumbering look in the face, a vague undercurrent in the
voice, a fantastical flavour to the thought. The change had come so
gradually that only Medallion and the wife had a real conception of how
great it was. Medallion had studied Secord from every stand-point. At
the very first he wondered if there was a woman in it. Much thinking
on a woman, whose influence on his life was evil or disturbing, might
account somewhat for the change in Secord. But, seeing how fond the man
was of his wife, Medallion gave up that idea. It was not liquor, for
Secord never touched it. One day, however, when Medallion was selling
the furniture of a house, he put up a feather bed, and, as was his
custom--for he was a whimsical fellow--let his humour have play. He
used many metaphors as to the virtue of the bed, crowning them with the
statement that you slept in it dreaming as delicious dreams as though
you had eaten poppy, or mandragora, or--He stopped short, said, "By
jingo, that's it!" knocked the bed down instantly, and was an utter
failure for the rest of the day.

The wife was longer in discovering the truth, but a certain morning, as
her husband lay sleeping after an all-night sitting with a patient, she
saw lying beside him--it had dropped from his waistcoat pocket--a
little bottle full of a dark liquid. She knew that he always carried his
medicine-phials in a pocket-case. She got the case, and saw that none
was missing. She noticed that the cork of the phial was well worn. She
took it out and smelled the liquid. Then she understood. She waited and
watched. She saw him after he waked look watchfully round, quietly take
a wine-glass, and let the liquid come drop by drop into it from the
point of his forefinger. Henceforth she read with understanding the
changes in his manner, and saw behind the mingled abstraction and
fanciful meditation of his talk.

She had not yet made up her mind what to do. She saw that he hid it from
her assiduously. He did so more because he wished not to pain her than
from furtiveness. By nature he was open and brave, and had always had a
reputation for plainness and sincerity. She was in no sense his equal in
intelligence or judgment, nor even in instinct. She was a wo