e would ever find us again?"

Dr. Pettit turned almost savagely on me.

"Promise or no promise," he said, "I will not allow this any longer.
You must go out of this room and stay out."

I stood up and faced him unflinchingly.

"I cannot, Dr. Pettit," I answered firmly. "I must keep my promise."

"Then I will get your release from that promise at once," he said and
strode toward the bed.

I watched him with terrified fascination. Had he gone suddenly mad?
What did he mean to do?

As Dr. Pettit turned from Lillian and me, and strode toward the bed
where the sick girl lay, apparently raving in delirium, I called out
to him in horror.

"Oh, don't disturb that delirious, dying girl!"

I made an impetuous step forward to try to stop him when Lillian
caught my arm and whirled me into a recess of the alcove.

"You unsuspecting little idiot," she said, giving me a tender little
shake that robbed the words of their harshness, "can't you see that
that girl is shamming?"

For a moment I could not comprehend what she meant; then the full
truth burst upon me. If what Lillian said were true, if the girl was
pretending delirium that she might utter words concerning Dicky's
infatuation for her which would torture me, then it was more than
probable, almost certain, in fact, that there was no word of truth in
her pretended delirious mutterings.

Dicky was not faithless to me, as I had feared during the tortured
moments in which I had listened to, the girl's ravings.

The joy of the sudden revelation almost unnerved me. I believe I would
have swooned and fallen had not Lillian caught me.

"Listen," she said in my ear, pinching my arm almost cruelly to arouse
me, "listen to what Dr. Pettit is saying, and you'll see that I am
right."

My eyes followed hers to the bed where Dr. Pettit stood gazing
down upon the seemingly unconscious girl and speaking in measured,
merciless fashion.

"This won't do, my girl," he was saying, and his tone and manner
of address seemed in some subtle fashion to strip all semblance of
dignity from the girl and leave her simply a "case" of the doctor's,
of a type only too familiar to him.

"It _won't_ do," he repeated. "You are simply shamming this delirium,
and you are lessening your chances for life every minute you persist
in it. I'm sorry to be hard on you, but I'm going to give you an
ultimatum right now. Either you will release Mrs. Graham from her
promise at once and quit this nonsense,