d up James was indeed looking at them
with large, serious, half-focussed eyes. It was as if he were coming
back from another world where the laws of vision were different, and he
was only partially adjusted to the present conditions. He moved his
hands feebly under the bedclothes, where they were being warmed by the
freestone, and then tried to moisten his lips. Agatha took a glass of
water from the table, looked about for a napkin, but, seeing none, wet
the tips of her fingers and placed them gently over James's lips. His
eyes followed her at first, but closed for an instant as she came near.
When they opened again, they looked more natural. As he felt the
comfort of the water on his lips, his features relaxed, and a look of
recognition illumined his face. His eyes moved from Agatha to Aleck,
who was now bending over him, and back to Agatha. The look was a
salute, happy and peaceful. Then his eyes closed again.

For an hour Agatha and Aleck kept their watch, almost fearing to
breathe. Doctor Thayer worked, gave quiet orders, tested the
heartbeats, let no movement or symptom go unnoticed. For a time James
kept even the doctor in doubt whether he was slipping into the Great
Unknown or into a deep and convalescent sleep. By the end of the hour,
however, Jimsy had decided for natural sleep, urged thereto, perhaps,
by that unseen playwright who had decreed another time for the curtain;
or perhaps he was kept by Doctor Thayer's professional persuasions, in
defiance of the prompter's signal. However the case, the heart slowly
but surely began to take up its job like an honest force-pump, the face
began to lose its death-like pallor, the breathing became more nearly
normal. Doctor Thayer, with Mrs. Stoddard quiet and efficient at his
elbow, worked and tested and worked again, and finally sat moveless for
some minutes, watch in hand, counting the pulsations of James's heart.
At the end of the time he laid the hand carefully back under the
clothes, put his watch in his pocket, and finally got up and looked
around the room.

Mrs. Stoddard was pouring something into a measuring glass. Agatha was
standing by the window, looking out into the blue night; and Aleck
could be seen through the half-open door, pacing up and down the hall.
Doctor Thayer turned to his sister.

"Give him his medicine on the half-hour, and then you go to bed. That
man Hand will do now." Then he went to the door and addressed Aleck.
"Well, M