up with the news that Peters was very ill. I hurried to his bed-side,
and knew by the first glance at his deliriums and his staring pupils
that he was poisoned with atropine. Wilson, the electrician, who had
passed the evening with him at Clodagh's in Hanover Square, was there.

'What on earth is the matter?' he said to me.

'Poisoned,' I answered.

'Good God! what with?'

'Atropine.'

'Good Heavens!'

'Don't be frightened: I think he will recover.'

'Is that certain?'

'Yes, I think--that is, if he leaves off taking the drug, Wilson.'

'What! it is he who has poisoned himself?'

I hesitated, I hesitated. But I said:

'He is in the habit of taking atropine, Wilson.'

Three hours I remained there, and, God knows, toiled hard for his life:
and when I left him in the dark of the fore-day, my mind was at rest: he
would recover.