carefully, with his finger on
the trigger, half cocking it, to see if it needed oil. It was a pretty
little toy. Suddenly, as he held it there, leaning against the
chiffonier, his thin white face with its deep black shadows under the
eyes reflected by the high, narrow glass, the four walls faded away from
him, with their familiar objects; his face gleamed whiter and whiter;
the shadows grew blacker; only his eyes stared----

A room, noticed once a year and a half ago, came before him now with a
creeping, all-possessing distinctness--that loathsome, dreadful room
(long since renovated) which, with its unmentionable suggestion of
horror, had held him spellbound on that morning when he had begun his
career at the factory. It held him spellbound now, evilly, insidiously.
He stood by that blackened, ashy hearth in the foul room, with its damp,
mottled, rotting walls, his eyes fastened on that hideous sofa to which
he was drawn--drawn a little nearer and a little nearer, the thing in
his hand--did it move itself? Cold to his touch, it moved----

The door opened, and Lois, with a face of awful calm, glided up to him.
She took the pistol from his relaxed hold; her lips refused to speak.

"Why, you needn't have been afraid, dear," he said at once, looking at
her with a gentle surprise. "I'm not a coward, to go and leave you
_that_ way. You need never be afraid of that, Lois."

"No," said Lois, with smiling, white lips. She could not have told what
made the frantic, overmastering fear, under the impulse of which she had
suddenly thrown the baby down on the bed and fled to Justin--what
strange force of thought-transference, imagined or real, had called her
there.

She busied herself making him comfortable, divining his wants and
getting things for him, simply and noiselessly, and then knelt down
beside him where he lay, putting her arms around him.

"You oughtn't to be doing this for me; I ought to be taking care of
you," he said, with a tender self-reproach that seemed to come from a
new, hitherto unknown Justin, who watched her face to see if it showed
fatigue, and counted the steps she took for him.

The doctor came, and sent him off sternly to bed, and came again later.
The last time he looked grave, ordered complete quiet, and left
sedatives to insure it. Grip, brought on by overwork, had evidently
taken a disregarded hold some time before, and must be reckoned with
now. What Mr. Alexander imperatively needed was rest,