"No," she sobbed, "I will not! Duane--I--" Pain made her faint; her grasp on his arm tightened convulsively; with a supreme effort she struck the flask out of his hand and dropped back unconscious. CHAPTER XXIII SINE DIE The message ran: "My sister badly hurt in an accident; concussion, intermittent consciousness. We fear spinal and internal injury. What train can you catch? SCOTT SEAGRAVE." Which telegram to Josiah Bailey, M.D., started that eminent general practitioner toward Roya-Neh in company with young Dr. Goss, a surgeon whose brilliancy and skill did not interfere with his self-restraint when there were two ways of doing things. They were to meet in an hour at the 5.07 train; but before Dr. Bailey set out for the rendezvous, and while his man was still packing his suit-case, the physician returned to his office, where a patient waited, head hanging, picking nervously at his fingers, his prominent, watery eyes fixed on vacancy. The young man neither looked up nor stirred when the doctor entered and reseated himself, picking up a pencil and pad. He thought a moment, squinted through his glasses, and continued writing the prescription which the receipt of the telegram from Roya-Neh had interrupted. When he had finished he glanced over the slip of paper, removed his gold-rimmed reading spectacles, folded them, balanced them thoughtfully in the palm of his large and healthy hand, considering the young fellow before him with grave, far-sighted eyes: "Stuyvesant," he said, "this prescription is not going to cure you. No medicine that I can give you is going to perform any such miracle unless you help yourself. Nothing on earth that man has invented, or is likely to invent, can cure your disease unless by God's grace the patient pitches in and helps himself. Is that plain talk?" Quest nodded and reached shakily for the prescription; but the doctor withheld it. "You asked for plain talk; are you listening to what I'm saying?" "Oh, hell, yes," burst out Quest; "I'm going to pull myself together. Didn't I tell you I would? But I've got to get a starter first, haven't I? I've got to have something to key me up first. I've explained to you that it's this crawling, squirming movement on the backs of my hands that I can't stand for. I want it stopped; I'll take anything you dope out; I'll do any turn you call for----" "Very well. I've told you to go to Mulqueen's. Go _now_!" "All right, doctor. Only they're too damn rough with a man. All right; I'll go. I _did_ go last winter, and look where I am now!" he snarled suddenly. "Have I got to get up against all that business again?" "You came out in perfectly good shape. It was up to you," said the doctor, coldly using the vernacular.