“Better, dear.  Go back in your room and lie down.  We are doing all we can.”

When James entered the office Gordon and Mrs. Blair turned with one accord, and fixed horribly searching eyes upon his face.  He sat down beside the table, and mechanically lit a cigar.

“How did she seem?” Gordon asked almost inaudibly.

“Better.”

“Was she quiet?”

“Yes.”

Gordon gave a long sigh.  His face was deadly white.  He leaned back in his chair, and both James and the nurse sprang.  They thought he had fainted.  While James felt his pulse Mrs. Blair got some brandy.  Gordon swallowed the brandy, and raised his head.

“It is nothing,” he said in a harsh voice.  “You had better go back to her, Mrs. Blair.”

A look of strange dread came over the woman’s grave face.

“I will be there directly,” said Gordon.

Mrs. Blair went out.  She left the door ajar.  The house was so still that one could seem to hear the silence.  There was something terrible about it after the turmoil of sound.  Then the silence was broken.  A scream more terrible than ever pierced it like a sword.  Another came.  Gordon sprang up and faced James.  The young man’s eyes fell before the look of fierce questioning in Gordon’s.

“I could not,” he gasped.  “Oh, Doctor Gordon, I could not!  Instead of that I used water.  I thought perhaps her mind being convinced that it was morphine, she might—­”

“Mind!” shouted Gordon.  “Mind, how much do you suppose the poor, tortured thing has to bring to bear upon this?  I tell you she is being eaten alive.  There is no other word for it.  Gnawed, and worried, and eaten alive.”  Gordon ran out of the room.

James closed the door.  The dog, who had been asleep beside the fire, started up, came over to James, laid his white head on his knee and whimpered, with an appealing look in his brown eyes, which were turned toward the young man’s face.  Almost immediately Mrs. Blair entered the room.  She was very pale.  “Doctor Gordon sent me down for the brandy,” she said abruptly.  She went to the table on which the brandy flask stood, but she seemed in no hurry to take it.

“How is she?” asked James.

“I think she is a little quieter.”  The nurse stood staring at the fire for a second longer.  Then she took the brandy flask and went out with a soft, but jarring, tread.

Doctor Gordon must have passed her on the stairs, for he returned almost directly after she had left, and stood with his back to James, fussing over some bottles on the shelves opposite the fireplace.  He stood there for some five minutes.  James glancing over his shoulder saw that he was trembling in a strange rigid fashion, but he seemed intent upon the bottles.  The house was very still again.  Gordon at last seemed to have finished whatever he was doing with the bottles.  He left them and sat down in his chair.  The dog left James and went to him, but Gordon pushed him away roughly.  Then Gordon spoke to James without turning his face in his direction.  “I wish you would go upstairs,” he said hoarsely.  “Mrs. Blair is alone, and I—­I am about done too.”