"She has been terrible!" he said. "Terrible! I have not had the courage to call in any one else, and I am worn out. She is asleep now, and I got out of the room for half an hour. The nurse is exhausted too. Do stay to-night." "I will stay. Let us go up-stairs." As they reached the second landing two handsome children romped across the hall and flung themselves upon their father. "Where have you been?" they demanded. "Why do you shut yourself up on the third floor with mamma all the time? When will she get well?" Schuyler kissed them and bade them return to the nursery. "How long can I keep it from them?" he asked bitterly. "What an atmosphere for children--my children!--to grow up in!" "If you would do as I wish, and send her where she belongs--" "I shall not. She is my wife. Moreover, concealment would then be impossible." They had reached the third floor. He inserted a key in a door, hesitated a moment, then said abruptly: "I saw in a paper that _she_ had returned. Can it be possible?" "I saw her on the Avenue a few moments ago." Was it the doctor's imagination, or did the goaded man at his side flash him a glance of appeal? They entered a room whose doors and windows were muffled. The furniture was solid, too solid to be moved except by muscular arms. There were no mirrors nor breakable articles of any sort. On the bed lay a woman with ragged hair and sunken yellow face, but even in her ruin indefinably elegant. Her parted lips were black and blistered within; her shapely skinny hands clutched the quilt with the tenacious suggestion of the eagle--that long-lived defiant bird. At the bedside sat a vigorous woman, the pallor of fatigue on her face. The creature on the bed opened her eyes. They had once been what are vaguely known as fine eyes; now they looked like blots of ink on parchment. "Give me a drink," she said feverishly. "Water! water! water!" She panted, and her tongue protruded slightly. Her husband turned away, his shoulders twitching. The nurse held a silver goblet to the woman's lips. She drank greedily, then scowled up at the doctor. "You missed it," she said. "I should be glad, for I hate you, only you give me more relief than they. They are afraid. They tried to fool me, the idiots! But they didn't try it twice. I bit." She laughed and threw her arms above her head. The loose sleeves of her gown fell back and disclosed arms speckled as if from an explosion of gunpowder. "Just an ordinary morphine fiend," thought the doctor. "And she is the wife of John Schuyler!"