over every hint and suggestion to be
gained from Luther's discussion of her situation. Nothing was clear except
that whatever her decision, it must be the nearest right of anything she
was able to understand. She remembered as she stopped to fasten the
barnyard gate behind her that Luther had said as he left her:

"He'll go away as soon as he is able, you say, Lizzie," and she remembered
the lingering tones of fondness in Luther's voice when Hugh's name was
mentioned.

It was not easy for Luther to say, let him die, either.

Elizabeth remembered at that point that Hugh's medicine was long overdue,
that medicine was more important just now than any of the questions with
which she had been struggling. With a frightened little cry she ran to the
house and to the sick-chamber.

"Never mind, Elizabeth," Hugh said when he saw her shuffling the papers
about in search of the bottle. "Jack came in and I had Hepsie give it to
me. I've decided that it isn't a good plan to have it there, and I'll keep
it under my pillow hereafter."

"I--I went out with Luther, Hugh, and I didn't realize that I was gone so
long. You've missed two doses!" She noticed that Hugh called her by her
given name altogether now.

Hugh laughed a sad little laugh.

"Well, I've had the one for this hour at least. I--I tried to take it
alone. I guess I won't try that again. It stuck in my throat and I got a
strangling spell. I coughed till--well, I thought I was going to get out
of taking medicine altogether. It's a terrible fear that grips a fellow
when he gets something stuck in his throat and knows that he can't lift
his head off his pillow. It isn't so much that he's afraid to die--it's
the death struggle he's afraid of."

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hugh Noland closed his eyes and did not see
the effect his words produced upon Elizabeth. By some sort of
psychological process he had placed that death struggle before her very
eyes. Hugh, all unconscious that he had made any impression, unconscious
that her attitude toward death differed from his own, or that his death
could mean much more to her than deliverance from the presence and care of
him, lay with his eyes closed, thinking his own bitter thoughts.

There was indeed enough in Hugh Noland's appearance to terrify the girl as
he lay before her, wasted and woebegone, his low forehead blue-veined and
colourless, his hands blue-veined and transparent, and all his shrunken
figure sharply outlined