ara," he whispered.

James knew what he meant. He hesitated.

"Go, and send Mrs. Blair down here," said Gordon. "Tell her I want to
see her."

"Well," said James slowly.

The two men did not look at each other again. Gordon sank into his
chair. James went out of the room and upstairs. He knocked on the door
of the sick-room, and Mrs. Blair, the village nurse, answered his knock.
She was a large woman in a voluminous wrapper. Her face had a settled
expression of gravity, almost of sternness. She looked at James. The
screams from the writhing mass of agony in the bed did not appear to be
moving her, whereas she in reality was herself screwed to such a pitch
of mental torture of pity that she was scarcely able to move. She was
rigid.

"Doctor Gordon sent me," whispered James. "He wished me to see her. He
asked me to say to you that he would like to see you for a minute in the
office."

The woman did not move for a second. Then she whispered close to James's
ear, "_It is on the bureau_."

James nodded. They passed each other. James entered the room and closed
the door. A lamp was burning on a table with a screen before it. The bed
was in shadow. The screams never ceased. They were not human. James
could not realize that the beautiful woman whom he had known was making
such sounds. They sounded like the shrieks of an animal. All the soul
seemed gone from them.

James approached the bed. There was a roll of dark eyes at him. Then a
voice ghastly beyond description, like the snarl of a hungry beast, came
from between the straight white lips. "More, more! Give me more! Be
quick!"

James hesitated.

"Quick, quick!" demanded the voice.

James crossed the room to the dresser. The sick woman now interspersed
her screams with the word "quick!"

James filled a hypodermic syringe from a glass on the bureau and
approached the bed again. He bared a shuddering arm and inserted the
instrument quickly. "Now try and be quiet," he said. "You will go to
sleep."

Then he went out of the room. The screams had ceased. As James
approached the stair another door opened, and Clemency in a wrapper
looked out. She was very pale, her eyes were distended with fear, and
her mouth was trembling. "How is she?" she whispered.

"Better, dear. Go back in your room and lie down. We are doing all we
can."

When James entered the office Gordon and Mrs. Blair turned with one
accord, and fixed horribly searching eyes upon his face. He sat do