or paid a second visit to his patient. Diana
saw him afterward alone. He was evidently touched by the situation in
the house, and, cautious as he was, allowed himself a few guarded
sentences throwing light on the doubt--which was in effect a hope--in
his own mind.

"Madame, it is a very difficult case. The emaciation, the weakness, the
nerve depression--even if there were no organic disease--are alone
enough to threaten life. The morphia is, of course, a contributing
cause. The question before us is: Have we here a case of irreparable
disease caused by the blow, or a case of nervous shock producing all the
symptoms of disease--pain, blindness, emaciation--but ultimately
curable? That is what we have to solve."

Diana's eyes implored him.

"Give him hope," she said, with intensity. "For weeks--months--he has
never allowed himself a moment's hope."

The doctor reflected.

"We will do what we can," he said, slowly. "Meanwhile,
cheerfulness!--all the cheerfulness possible."

Diana's faint, obedient smile, as she rose to leave the room, touched
him afresh. Just married, he understood. These are the things that
women do!

As he opened the door for her he said, with some hesitation: "You have,
perhaps, heard of some of the curious effects that a railway collision
produces. A man who has been in a collision and received a blow suffers
afterward great pain, loss of walking power, impairment of vision, and
so forth. The man's suffering is real--the man himself perfectly
sincere--his doctor diagnoses incurable injury--the jury awards him
damages. Yet, in a certain number of instances, the man recovers. Have
we here an aggravated form of the same thing? _Ah, madame, courage!_"

For in the doorway he saw her fall back against the lintel for support.
The hope that he infused tested her physically more severely than the
agonies of the preceding weeks. But almost immediately she controlled
herself, smiled at him again, and went.

That night various changes were made at Tallyn. Diana's maid unpacked,
in the room communicating with Marsham's; and Diana, pale and composed,
made a new arrangement with Oliver's male nurse. She was to take the
nursing of the first part of the night, and he was to relieve her at
three in the morning. To her would fall the administration of the
new medicine.

* * * * *

At eleven o'clock all was still in the house. Diana opened the door of
Oliver's room with a beat