Voice and tone were those of another man, and Lady Tressady quailed
under the change. She pointed to a small bag on a table near her. He
opened it, and she took out a box, from which she swallowed something.
Gradually breath and colour returned, and she began to move restlessly.

"That was nothing," she said, as though to herself--"nothing--and it
yielded at once. Well, George, I knew you thought me a humbug!"

Her eyes glanced at him with a kind of miserable triumph. He looked down
upon her, still kneeling, horror-struck against his will. After a life of
acting, was this the truth--this terror, which spoke in every movement,
and in some strange way had seized upon and infected himself?

He urgently asked her to be frank with him. And with a sob she poured
herself out. It was the tragic, familiar story that every household
knows. Grave symptoms, suddenly observed--the hurried visit to a
specialist--his verdict and his warnings.

"Of course, he said at first I ought to give up everything and go
abroad--to this very same place--Bad-what-do-you-call-it? But I told him
straight out I couldn't and wouldn't do anything of the sort. I am just
eaten up with engagements. And as to staying at home and lying-up, that's
nonsense--I should die of that in a fortnight. So I told him to give me
something to take, and that was all I could do. And in the end he quite
came round--they always do if you take your own line--and said I had
much better do what suited me, and take care. Besides, what do any of
them know? They all confess they're just fumbling about. Now, surgery,
of course--that's different. Battye"--Battye was Lady Tressady's ordinary
medical adviser--"doesn't believe all the other man said. I knew he
wouldn't. And as for making an invalid of me, he sees, of course, that it