you are comfortable, Ned, and I should like to tell him
that you had eaten your breakfast."

"Oh, yes! Tell him that. Say I ate it voraciously." And he swallowed
down the cup of tea and took a bite at the roll.

"I will tell him," Dr. Green said. "I will come in again this evening,
and will perhaps bring in with me a little medicine. You will be all the
better for a soothing draught."

"I want no draughts," Ned said. "Why should I? I am as right as
ninepence."

"Very well. We will see," the doctor said. "Now I must be going my
rounds."

As soon as he had gone Ned began pacing up and down the room, as he
had done the whole of the past night without intermission. Gradually,
however, the powerful narcotic began to take effect. His walk became
slower, his head began to droop, and at last he stumbled toward the bed
in the corner of the room, threw himself heavily down, and was almost
instantly sound asleep. Five minutes later the door opened quietly and
Dr. Green entered.

He had been listening outside the door, had noticed the change in the
character of Ned's walk, and having heard the fall upon the bed, and had
no fear of his rousing himself at his entrance. The boy was lying across
the bed, and the doctor, who was a powerful man, lifted him gently and
laid him with his head upon the pillow. He felt his pulse, and lifted
his eyelid.

"It was a strong dose," he said to himself, "far stronger than I should
have dared give him at any other time, but nothing less would have
acted, with his brain in such an excited state. I must keep in the town
today and look in from time to time and see how he is going on. It may
be that I shall have to take steps to rouse him."

At the next visit Dr. Green looked somewhat anxious as he listened to
the boy's breathing and saw how strongly he was under the influence of
the narcotic.

"Under any other circumstances," he said to the chief constable, who had
entered the room with him, "I should take strong measures to arouse him
at once, but as it is I will risk it. I know it is a risk both for
him and me, for a nice scrape I should get in if he slipped through
my fingers; but unless he gets sleep I believe his brain will go, and
anything is better than that."

"Yes, poor lad," the officer said. "When I look at his face I confess my
sympathies are all with him rather than with the man he killed."

"I don't think he killed him," the doctor said quietly. "I am almost
sure he didn't."