At nine o'clock he was still awake. At ten o'clock he was still awake.
At eleven o'clock he was still awake. At twelve o'clock he was still
awake.... At one o'clock he was almost crazy. By quarter past one, as
though fairly hypnotized, his eyes began to rivet themselves on the
little bright spot in the rug where the "serial-letter" lay gleaming
whitely in a beam of electric light from the street. Finally, in one
supreme, childish impulse of petulant curiosity, he scrambled
shiveringly out of his blankets with many "O--h's" and "O-u-c-h-'s,"
recaptured the letter, and took it growlingly back to his warm bed.

Worn out quite as much with the grinding monotony of his rheumatic
pains as with their actual acuteness, the new discomfort of straining
his eyes under the feeble rays of his night-light seemed almost a
pleasant diversion.

The envelope was certainly fat. As he ripped it open, three or four
folded papers like sleeping-powders, all duly numbered, "1 A. M.," "2
A. M.," "3 A. M.," "4 A. M." fell out of it. With increasing
inquisitiveness he drew forth the letter itself.

"Dear Honey," said the letter quite boldly. Absurd as it was, the
phrase crinkled Stanton's heart just the merest trifle.

"DEAR HONEY:

"There are so many things about your sickness that worry me.
Yes there are! I worry about your pain. I worry about the
horrid food that you're probably getting. I worry about the
coldness of your room. But most of anything in the world I