With the flannel gown clutched tightly to his chest, where the dull rattling sounds went on unceasingly, George was staring in fascinated intensity at the reflection of the electric light in the mirror.  Then suddenly, with a scream of terror, he lifted the poker Miss Polly had dropped, and flung it over Gabriella’s head in the direction of the dressing-table.  At the noise of breaking glass, Gabriella rose from her knees, and said in the hard, quiet voice she had used ever since the first shock of the meeting: 

“If you are afraid, lock yourself in your room, Miss Polly.  I am going downstairs for Mr. O’Hara.”

Without waiting for a response, she ran out into the hall and down the staircase, while her eyes clung to the comforting glimmer of light under the drawing-room door.  As her feet touched the lowest step, the door opened quickly, and O’Hara stood on the threshold.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TEST

“I knew something was wrong,” he said, emerging, big and efficient, from the firelight, “and I was just coming up.”  Before she could answer she felt his warm grasp on her hands, and it seemed to her suddenly that it was not only her hands he enfolded, but her agonized and suffering mind.

“There’s a man up there—­” she faltered helplessly.  “I was once married to him long ago—­oh, long ago.  Just now I found him in the street and he seems to be out of his mind.  We are frightened.”

But he seemed not to hear her, not to demand an explanation, not even to wait to discover what she wanted.  Already his long stride was outstripping her on the staircase, and while she followed more slowly, pausing now and then to take breath, she realized thankfully that the situation had passed completely away from her power of command.  As Miss Polly’s strength to hers, so was her strength to O’Hara’s.

Faint, despairing moans issued from Archibald’s room as she reached the landing; and going inside, she saw George wrestling feebly with O’Hara, who held him with one hand while with the other he waved authoritative directions to Miss Polly.

“Get the bed ready for him, with plenty of hot blankets.  He’s about at the end of his rope now.  It’s a jag, but it’s more than a jag, too.  If I’m not mistaken he’s in for a case of pneumonia.”

Miss Polly, hovering timidly at a safe distance, held out the blankets and the hot water bottles, while O’Hara carried George across the room to the bed, and then covered him warmly.  When he turned to glance about his gaze fell on Gabriella, and he remarked bluntly:  “You’d better get out.  You aren’t wanted.”

“But I am obliged to be here.  It is my business, not yours,” she replied, while a sensation of sickness passed over her.

For a moment he regarded her stubbornly, “Well, I don’t know whose business it was a minute ago,” he rejoined, “but it’s mine now.  I am boss of this particular hell, and you’re going to keep out of it.  I guess I know more about D.T. than you and Miss Polly put together would know in a thousand years.”