tted, and
Donal got him to bed.

"Now put that cabinet by me on the table," he said.

The cabinet was that in which he kept his drugs, and had not been
touched since he left it.

Donal opened the window, took up the cabinet, and threw it out.

With a bellow like that of a bull, the earl sprang out of bed, and just
as the crash came from below, ran at Donal where he stood shutting the
window, as if he would have sent him after the cabinet. Donal caught
him and held him fast.

"My lord," he said, "I will nurse you, serve you, do anything,
everything for you; but for the devil I'll be damned if I move hand or
foot! Not one drop of hellish stuff shall pass your lips while I am
with you!"

"But I am dying! I shall die of the horrors!" shrieked the earl,
struggling to get to the window, as if he might yet do something to
save his precious extracts, tinctures, essences, and compounds.

"We will send for the doctor," said Donal. "A very clever young fellow
has come to the town since you left: perhaps he can help you. I will do
what I can to make you give your life fair play."

"Come, come! none of that damned rubbish! My life is of no end of value
to me! Besides, it's too late. If I were young now, with a constitution
like yours, and the world before me, there might be some good in a
paring or two of self-denial; but you wouldn't stab your murderer for
fear of the clasp knife closing on your hand! you would not fire your
pistol at him for fear of its bursting and blowing your brains out!"

"I have no desire to keep you alive, my lord; but I would give my life
to let you get some of the good of this world before you pass to the
next. To lengthen your life infinitely, I would not give you a single
drop of any one of those cursed drugs!"

He rang the bell again.

"You're a friendly fellow!" grunted his lordship, and went back to his
bed to ponder how to gain the solace of his passion.

Mrs. Brookes came.

"Will you please send to Mr. Avory, the new surgeon," said Donal, "and
ask him, in my name, to come to the castle."

The earl was so ill, however, as to be doubtful, much as he desired
them, whether, while rendering him for the moment less sensible to
them, any of his drugs would do no other than increase his sufferings.
He lay with closed eyes, a strange expression of pain mingled with
something like fear every now and then passing over his face. I doubt
if his conscience troubled him. It is in general those, I