“But I’m really serious, Alan.  Shall I give you something?  Which shall we begin on?  And we’d better begin soon, for there’s a man coming from the doctor to look after you, and then you won’t get anything.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!  Give me those decanters!” Alan struggled out of his chair, and trembled over to where she had them on the table beside her.

She caught them up, one in either hand, and held them as high as she could lift them.  “If you don’t sit down and promise to keep still, I’ll smash them both on the hearth.  You know I will.”

Her strange eyes gleamed, and he hesitated; then he went back to his chair.

“I don’t see what’s got into you to-night.  I don’t want anything,” he said.  He tried to brave it out, but presently he cast a piteous glance at the decanters where she had put them down beside her again.  “Does the doctor think I’d better go again?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“To-morrow.”

He looked at the decanters.  “And when is that fellow coming?”

“He may be here any moment.”

“It’s pretty rough,” he sighed.  “Two glasses of that stuff would drive you so wild you wouldn’t know where you were, Bess,” he expostulated.

“Well, I wish I didn’t know where I was.  I wish I wasn’t anywhere.”  He looked at her, and then dropped his eyes, with the effect of giving up a hopeless conundrum.

But he asked:  “What’s the matter?”

She scanned him keenly before she answered:  “Something that I should like to tell you—­that you ought to know.  Alan, do you think you are fit to judge of a very serious matter?”

He laughed pathetically.  “I don’t believe I’m in a very judicial frame of mind to-night, Bess.  To-morrow—­”

“Oh, to-morrow!  Where will you be to-morrow?”

“That’s true!  Well, what is it?  I’ll try to listen.  But if you knew how my nerves were going.”  His eyes wandered from hers back to the decanters.  “If I had just one glass—­”

“I’ll have one, too,” she said, with a motion toward the decanter next her.

He threw up his arms.  “Oh well, go on.  I’ll listen as well as I can.”  He sank down in his chair and stretched his little feet out toward the fire.  “Go on!”

She hesitated before she began.  “Do you know who brought you home last night, Alan?”

“Yes,” he answered, quickly, “Westover.”

“Yes, Mr. Westover brought you, and you wouldn’t stay.  You don’t remember anything else?”

“No.  What else?”

“Nothing for you, if you don’t remember.”  She sat in silent hopelessness for a while, and her brother’s eyes dwelt on the decanters, which she seemed to have forgotten.  “Alan!” she broke out, abruptly, “I’m worried, and if I can’t tell you about it there’s no one I can.”

The appeal in tier voice must have reached him, though he seemed scarcely to have heeded her words.  “What is it?” he asked, kindly.