“Only what I have heard Mrs. Minott say,” Jack whispered behind his hand.  “He can’t sleep without it, she told me.  He’s been under a terrible business strain lately and couldn’t stand the pressure, I expect.”

“Well, that’s a little better,” returned the doctor, moving the apparently lifeless arm aside and placing his ear close to the patient’s breast.  For a moment he listened intently, then he drew up a chair and sat down beside him, his fingers on Garry’s pulse.

“You don’t think he’s in danger, do you, doctor?” asked Jack in an anxious tone.

“No—­he’ll pull through.  His breathing is bad, but his heart is doing fairly well.  But he’s got to stop this sort of thing.”  Here the old doctor’s voice rose as his indignation increased (nothing would wake Garry).  “It’s criminal—­it’s damnable!  Every time one of you New York people get worried, or short of money or stocks, or what not, off you go to a two-cent drug shop and buy enough poison to kill a family.  It’s damnable, Breen—­and you must tell Minott so when he wakes up”

Jack made no protest against being included in the denunciation.  He was too completely absorbed in the fate of the man who lay in a stupor.

“Is there anything can be done for him?” he asked.

“I can’t tell yet.  He may only have taken a small dose.  I will watch him for a while.  But if his pulse weakens we must shake him awake somehow.  You needn’t wait I’ll call you if I want you, You’ve told me what I wanted to know.”

Again Jack bent over Garry, his heart wrung with pity and dismay.  He was still there when the door opened softly and a servant entered, tiptoed to where he stood, and whispered in his ear: 

“Mrs. Minott says, sir, that Mr. McGowan and another man are downstairs.”

The contractor was standing in the hall, his hat still on his head.  The other man Jack recognized as Murphy, one of the church building trustees.  That McGowan was in an ugly mood was evident from the expression on his face, his jaw setting tighter when he discovered that Jack and not Garry was coming down to meet him; Jack having been associated with MacFarlane, who had “robbed him of damages” to the “fill.”

“I came to see Mr. Minott,” McGowan blurted out before Jack’s feet had touched the bottom step of the stairs.  “I hear he’s in—­come home at dinner time.”

Jack continued his advance without answering until he had reached their side.  Then with a “Good-evening, gentlemen,” he said in a perfectly even voice: 

“Mr. Minott is ill and can see no one.  I have just left the doctor sitting beside his bed.  If there is anything I can do for either of you I will do it with pleasure.”

McGowan shoved his hat back on his forehead as if to give himself more air.