But when Doctor Gordon entered this vision was clouded, for Gordon’s face had reassumed its old expression of settled melancholy and despair.  He inquired how James found himself with an apathetic air, and then sat down and mechanically filled his pipe.  After it was filled he seemed to forget to light it, so deep was his painful reverie.  He sat with it in hand, staring straight ahead.  Then a strange thing happened.  The office door opened and Mrs. Blair, the nurse, entered.  She was dressed in black, she carried a black travelling bag, and she wore a black bonnet, with a high black tuft on the top by way of trimming.  Mrs. Blair was very tall, and this black tuft, when she entered the door, barely grazed the lintel.

Gordon rose and said good evening, and regarded her in a bewildered fashion, as did James and Clemency.

Mrs. Blair spoke with no preface.  “I am going to leave Alton,” she said in her severe voice, “and I want to tell you something first, and to say good-by.”  She looked at Gordon, then at the others, one after another, then at Gordon again.  “I did not think at first that it would be necessary for me to say what I am going to,” she continued, “but I overheard some things that were said that night, and I have been thinking—­and then I heard the other day (I don’t know how true it is) that Clemency and Doctor Elliot had had a falling out, and I didn’t know but—­I didn’t quite know what anybody thought, and I wanted you all to know the truth.  I didn’t want any mistakes made to cause unhappiness.”  She hesitated, her eyes upon Doctor Gordon grew more intense.  “Maybe you think you gave her that dose of morphine that killed her,” she said steadily, “but you didn’t.  Doctor Elliot gave her water, and you gave her mostly water.  I had diluted the morphine, and you didn’t know it.  I had made up my mind that she was going to have the morphine, but I had made up my mind that nobody but me should have the responsibility of it.  I’m all alone in the world, and my conscience upheld me, and I felt I’d rather take the blame, if there was to be any.  I made up my mind to wait till a certain time and then give it to her, and I did.  I am the one who gave her the morphine that killed her.  I am going to leave Alton for good.  My trunk is down at the station.  I came to tell you that I gave her the morphine, and if I did wrong in helping God to shorten her sufferings, I am the one to be punished, and I stand ready to bear the punishment.”

Gordon looked at her.  He did not speak, but it was with his face as if a mask of dreadful misery had dropped from it.

“Good-by!” said Mrs. Blair.  She went out of the door, and the black tuft on her bonnet barely grazed the lintel.

THE END

OTHER WORKS BY MARY E. WILKINS-FREEMAN

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