At ten minutes after eight I was back in the house. Mr. Reed admitted me, going through the tedious process of unlocking outer and inner vestibule doors and fastening them again behind me. He inquired politely if I had had a pleasant walk, and without waiting for my reply fell to reading the evening paper. He seemed to have forgotten me absolutely. First he scanned the headlines; then he turned feverishly to something farther on and ran his fingers down along a column. His lips were twitching, but evidently he did not find what he expected—or feared—for he threw the paper away and did not glance at it again. I watched him from the angle of the stairs. Even for that short interval Mrs. Reed had taken his place at the children’s door. She wore a black dress, long sleeved and high at the throat, instead of the silk negligee of the previous evening, and she held a book. But she was not reading. She smiled rather wistfully when she saw me. “How fresh you always look!” she said. “And so self-reliant. I wish I had your courage.” “I am perfectly well. I dare say that explains a lot. Kiddies asleep?” “Freddie isn’t. He has been crying for Chang. I hate night, Miss Adams. I’m like Freddie. All my troubles come up about this time. I’m horribly depressed.” Her blue eyes filled with tears. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she confessed. I should think not! Without taking off my things I went down to Mr. Reed in the lower hall. “I’m going to insist on something,” I said. “Mrs. Reed is highly nervous. She says she has not been sleeping. I think if I give her an opiate and she gets an entire night’s sleep it may save her a breakdown.” I looked straight in his eyes, and for once he did evade me. “I’m afraid I’ve been very selfish,” he said. “Of course she must have sleep. I’ll give you a powder, unless you have something you prefer to use.” I remembered then that he was a chemist, and said I would gladly use whatever he gave me. “There is another thing I wanted to speak about, Mr. Reed,” I said. “The children are mourning their dog. Don’t you think he may have been accidentally shut up somewhere in the house in one of the upper floors?” “Why do you say that?” he demanded sharply. “They say they have heard him howling.” He hesitated for barely a moment. Then: “Possibly,” he said. “But they will not hear him again. The little chap has been sick, and he—died to-day. Of course the boys are not to know.” No one watched the staircase that night. I gave Mrs. Reed the opiate and saw her comfortably into bed. When I went back fifteen minutes later she was resting, but not asleep. Opiates sometimes make people garrulous for a little while—sheer comfort, perhaps, and relaxed tension. I’ve had stockbrokers and bankers in the hospital give me tips, after a hypodermic of morphia, that would have made me wealthy had I not been limited to my training allowance of twelve dollars a month.