cupboard and forced some between his teeth.

"Be strong, David," she whispered, "and tell me of these things."

He sat up, and with his incoherent words came the birth to her of a new
and horrible suspicion.

"I had to have money," he muttered. "She drove me to it. She turned me
away. I was in rags, an ill-looking object. But I never meant that.
Douglas was before me, and he knows it."

His head fell back, he was unconscious. Joan rang the bell, and sent
the maid for a doctor. Yet when he recovered and learnt what she had
done he refused flatly to see him.

"A doctor" he muttered, "would feel my forehead and ask me questions.
Their madhouses are full enough without me. I've work to do yet."

She spoke to him soothingly as to a child.

"David," she said, "we have a little money--not much, but such as it is
you must share. I cannot have you go about starved or in rags."

He staggered up.

"I'm off. Keep your money. I've no use for it."

She stood in front of the door, her jaws were set and there was a
bright, hard light in her eyes.