"You needn't mind staying any longer," she remarked, brusquely; "I will
take charge of the patient now."

"No," said the other, quietly but firmly. "It is between twelve and one
that the most important medicine must be administered."

"Don't you suppose I am capable of giving it?" retorted Nadine angrily
enough. "You don't seem to realize what is the business of a paid
nurse!"

The other made no remark, but still she lingered. Had she a suspicion
that there was anything amiss?

She was a strange creature, anyhow, with that old-looking face, the
great mass of thick black hair studded with gray, and the thick blue
glasses.

Where had she seen some one of whom this creature reminded her so
strangely and so strongly?

Even the tone of her voice, although it sounded hoarse and unnatural,
was somehow familiar to her.

The very way in which Mrs. Brown crested her head she had seen somewhere
before, and it had made quite an impression upon her at the time.

"I can not help thinking that she is always spying upon every movement
of mine, and she listens--I am sure she does--to every word the doctor
and I say; and these people who watch others so much always need
watching themselves."

Seeing that Nadine Holt was determined to banish her from the sick-room,
Dorothy quitted the apartment with a very heavy heart, though she could
not have told why.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The days that followed were dark ones to the Garner household, for
Jessie began to fail rapidly.

She grew so weak that the entire household began to grow terribly
alarmed over her condition. Even the doctor had grave apprehension for
his patient.

"The case of Miss Staples puzzles me completely," he said to Doctor
Crandall, when he returned to his office one afternoon. "I have never
known of symptoms like hers;" and he minutely described the strange turn
the case had taken which had baffled him completely.

"As soon as I am able to be about I will go with you and see for myself
just where the trouble is."

Meanwhile, a serious matter was agitating the brain of poor Jessie
Staples.

She realized before any of the rest did that her condition was becoming
alarming, and her wedding-day was drawing nearer and nearer.

But when that day dawned, a secret voice in her heart whispered that she
would be "the bride of death," and not Jack Garner's.

She wondered if Heaven meant it for the best, that she must give up the
life that might have held