"This way, Avery--turn your head this way. Here is the air. The window is open. Don't struggle so. It is all right. Breathe naturally," added the dentist. "Come, take it quietly. There is no harm done. The tooth is out. I never knew the gas work more easily." Marshall Avery battled up and pushed his friend away. The cold air, dashing in from the open window, chafed his face smartly. He drank it in gulps before he could manage to speak. It was raining, and the storm wet the sill. A few drops spattered over and hit his hand. "Armstrong!--for Heaven's sake!--if there's any mercy in you"-- "That's a large phrase for a small occasion, Avery. I have n't committed murder, you know." "I 'm not so sure of it," muttered Avery, staring about. "I don't understand. Did I have another tooth out--after all that--happened?" "I should hope not. I must say you make as much fuss over this one molar as a child or a clergyman," answered the dentist brusquely. "We regard those as our most troublesome classes." "Did you give me chloroform?" "I don't give chloroform." "Gas, then?" "Why, certainly, I gave gas." "Did I ask for it?" "Yes. You asked for it. Even if you had n't--You don't bear pain, you know, Avery, with that composure"-- "Armstrong? Say, Armstrong. When you went over to the club with me"-- The dentist twisted his mustache. --"was Romer's yacht lying out in the river then? I seem to remember that you did n't want me to take that trip. And you did n't know it would blow a gale, either. And you did n't know that she"-- "Get up, Avery, and walk about the room. You come to slowly." "And when the wreck got into the papers--she could n't bear that.... She was so ill when I left her ... Armstrong! Was it you kept me here in this blanked chair while my wife was dying?" Dr. Armstrong laughed aloud. Avery sprang towards him. He had a muddy intention of seizing the dentist by the throat. But a thought occurred to him which held him back. Now, as his consciousness clarified, he saw brilliant and beautiful light throbbing about him; he seemed to float in it, as if he were poised in mid-heaven. A scintillation in his brain shot into glory, and broke as it fell into a thousand rays and jets of joy. "Do you mean to tell me I never went on that accursed cruise--with a fool gun--to murder ducks ... and left my wife dangerously sick? Do you mean that Jean ... is n't ... Say, Armstrong, you would n't make game of a man in a position like mine, if you knew... Armstrong!" piteously, "my wife is n't _living_--is she, Armstrong?" "She was, the last I heard," replied the dentist, sterilizing his instruments with a cool and scientific attention. "That was when you sat down in this chair to have your tooth out." As Avery dashed by him the dentist put out a detaining hand. "Wait a second, Avery. I don't consider you quite fit to go yet. Here--wait a minute!"