Having demolished Mr. Daney with a verbal broadside, Donald would appear to consider his enemy dead and direct his remarks to Nan Brent.  He would reproach her tenderly for leaving Port Agnew without informing him of her intention; he assured her he loved her, and that unless she returned life would not be worth living.  Sometimes he would call upon old dead Caleb to reason with her in his behalf.  About that time he would be emerging from a Brand bath and, with the decline of his temperature, his mutterings and complaints gradually grew incoherent again and he would sleep.

Thus two weeks passed.  Donald showed no sign of the improvement which should ordinarily be looked for in the third week, and it was apparent to the doctors and nurses who attended him that the young Laird was not making a fight to get well—­that his tremendous physical resistance was gradually being undermined.  His day-nurse it was who had the courage, womanlike, to bring the matter to an issue.

“He’s madly in love with that Nan girl he’s always raving about,” she declared.  “From all I can gather from his disconnected sentences, she has left Port Agnew forever, and he doesn’t know where she is.  Now, I’ve seen men—­little, weak men—­recover from a worse attack of typhoid than this big fellow has, and he ought to be on the up-grade now, if ever—­yet he’s headed down-hill.  About next week he’s going to start to coast, unless Nan Brent shows up to take him by the hand and lead him back up-hill.  I believe she could do it—­if she would.”

“I believe she could, also,” the doctor agreed.  “Perhaps you’ve noticed that, although his family have listened to him rave about her, they have never given the slightest indication that they know what he is raving about.  The girl’s tabu, apparently.”

“The Laird appears to be a human being.  Have you spoken to him about this—­Nan girl?”

“I tried to—­once.  He looked at me—­and I didn’t try any more.  The fact is,” the doctor added, lowering his voice, “I have a notion that old Hector, through Daney, gave the girl money to leave the country.”

“If he knew what an important personage she is at this minute, he’d give her more money to come back—­if only just long enough to save his son.  Have you spoken to Mr. Daney?”

“No; but I think I had better.  He has a great deal of influence with The Laird, and since I have no doubt they were in this conspiracy together, Daney may venture to discuss with the old man the advisability of bringing the girl back to Port Agnew.”

“If she doesn’t appear on the scene within ten days—­”

“I agree with you.  Guess I’ll look up Mr. Daney.”

He did.  Daney was at his desk in the mill office when the doctor entered and, without the least circumlocution, apprised him of the desperate state to which Donald was reduced.

“I tell you, Mr. Daney,” he declared, and pounded Daney’s desk to emphasize his statement, “everything that medical science can do for that boy has been done, but he’s slipping out from under us.  Our last hope lies in Nan Brent.  If she can be induced to come to his bedside, hold his hand, and call him pet names when he’s rational, he’ll buck up and win out.  There are no dangerous physical complications to combat now.  They are entirely mental.”