Elsley looked up in his face with a puzzled piteous expression.

“Do you know, Thurnall, I fancy at moments that my mind is not what it was.  Fancies flit from me as quickly as they come.  I had twenty verses five minutes ago, and now I cannot recollect one.”

“No wonder,” thought Tom to himself.  “My clear fellow, recollect all that you have suffered with this neuralgia.  Believe me all you want is animal strength.  Chops and porter will bring all the verses back, or better ones instead of them.”

He tried to make Elsley eat; and Elsley tried himself:  but failed.  The moment the meat touched his lips he loathed it, and only courtesy prevented his leaving the room to escape the smell.  The laudanum had done its work upon his digestion.  He tried the porter, and drank a little:  then, suddenly stopping, he pulled out a phial, dropped a heavy dose of his poison into the porter, and tossed it off.

“Sold am I?” said Tom to himself.  “He must have hidden the bottle as he came out of the room with me.  Oh, the cunning of those opium-eaters?  However, it will keep him quiet just now, and to Eaton Square I must go.”

“You had better be quiet now, my dear fellow, after your dose; talking will only excite you.  Settle yourself on my bed, and I’ll be back in an hour.”

So he put Elsley on his bed, carefully removing razors and pistols (for he had still his fears of an outburst of passion), then locked him in, ran down into the Strand, threw himself into a cab for Eaton Square, and asked for Valencia.

Campbell had been there already; so Tom took care to tell nothing which he had not told, expecting, and rightly, that he would not mention Elsley’s having fired at him.  Lucia was still all but senseless, too weak even to ask for Elsley; to attempt any meeting between her and her husband would be madness.

“What will you do with the unhappy man, Mr. Thurnall?”

“Keep him under my eye, day and night, till he is either rational again, or—­”

“Do you think that he may?—­Oh my poor sister!”

“I think that he may yet end very sadly, madam.  There is no use concealing the truth from you.  All I can promise is, that I will treat him as my own brother.”

Valencia held out her fair hand to the young doctor.  He stooped, and lifted the tips of her fingers to his lips.

“I am not worthy of such an honour, madam.  I shall study to deserve it.”  And he bowed himself out, the same sturdy, self-confident Tom, doing right, he hardly knew why, save that it was all in the way of business.