comfort from Daney and his family as he might.
While his temperature remained below a hundred and four, Donald would
lie in a semi-comatose condition, but the instant the thermometer
crept beyond that point he would commence to mutter incoherently.
Suddenly, he would announce, so loudly The Laird could hear every
word, that he contemplated the complete and immediate destruction of
Andrew Daney and would demand that the culprit be brought before him.
Sometimes he assumed that Daney was present, and the not unusual
phenomenon attendant upon delirium occurred. When in good health
Donald never swore; neither would he tolerate rough language in his
presence from an employe; nevertheless, in his delirium he managed, at
least once daily, to heap upon the unfortunate Daney a generous
helping of invective of a quality that would have made a mule-skinner
blush. Sometimes Mr. Daney was unfortunate enough to drop in at the
hospital in time to hear this stream of anathema sounding through the
corridor; upon such occasions he would go into The Laird's room and he
and old Hector would eye each other grimly but say never a word.

Having demolished Mr. Daney with a verbal broadside, Donald would
appear to consider his enemy dead and direct his remarks to Nan Brent.
He would reproach her tenderly for leaving Port Agnew without
informing him of her intention; he assured her he loved her, and that
unless she returned life would not be worth living. Sometimes he would
call upon old dead Caleb to reason with her in his behalf. About that
time he would be emerging from a Brand bath and, with the decline of
his temperature, his mutterings and complaints gradually grew
incoherent again and he would sleep.

Thus two weeks passed. Donald showed no sign of the improvement which
should ordinarily be looked for in the third week, and it was apparent
to the doctors and nurses who attended him that the young Laird was
not making a fight to get well--that his tremendous physical
resistance was gradually being undermined. His day-nurse it was who
had the courage, womanlike, to bring the matter to an issue.

"He's madly in love with that Nan girl he's always raving about," she
declared. "From all I can gather from his disconnected sentences, she
has left Port Agnew forever, and he doesn't know where she is. Now,
I've seen men--little, weak men--recover from a worse attack of
typhoid than this big fellow has, and he ought to be on the up-grade
now, if