to bed with this lot. Carry Mr. Hope up; he is my first patient. Bring me
eggs, milk, brandy, new port-wine. Cook!"

"Sir?"

"Hammer three chickens to pieces with your rolling-pin, then mince them;
then chuck them into a big pot with cold water, stew them an hour, and
then boil them to a jelly, strain, and serve. Meantime, send up three
slices of mutton half raw; we will do a little chewing, not much."

The patients submitted like lambs, only Walter grumbled a little, but at
last confessed to a headache and sudden weariness.

Julia Clifford took special charge of Grace Hope, the doctor of William
Hope, and Colonel Clifford sat by Walter, congratulating, soothing, and
encouraging him, until he began to doze.

* * * * *

Doctor Garner's estimate of his patients proved correct. The next day
Walter was in a raging fever.

Hope remained in a pitiable state of weakness, and Grace, who in theory
was the weaker vessel, began to assist Julia in nursing them both. To be
sure, she was all whip-cord and steel beneath her delicate skin, and had
always been active and temperate. And then she was much the youngest, and
the constitutions of such women are anything but weak. Still, it was a
most elastic recovery from a great shock.

But the more her body recovered its strength, and her brain its
clearness, the more was her mind agitated and distressed.

Her first horrible anxiety was for Walter's life. The doctor showed no
fear, but that might be his way.

It was a raging fever, with all the varieties that make fever terrible to
behold. He was never left without two attendants; and as Hope was in no
danger now, though pitiably weak and slowly convalescent, Grace was often
one of Walter's nurses. So was Julia Clifford. He sometimes recognized
them for a little while, and filled their loving hearts with hope. But
the next moment he was off into the world of illusions, and sometimes
could not see them. Often he asked for Grace most piteously when she was
looking at him through her tears, and trying hard to win him to her with
her voice. On these occasions he always called her Mary. One unlucky day
that Grace and Julia were his only attendants he became very restless and
wild, said he had committed a great crime, and the scaffold was being
prepared for him. "Hark!" said he; "don't you hear the workmen? Curse
their hammers; their eternal tip-tapping goes through my brain. The
scaffold! What would the