It was just as well, perhaps, that Phyllis did not do much sleeping that night, for at about two Wallis knocked at her door. It seemed like history repeating itself when he said: "Could you come to Mr. Allan, please? He seems very bad." She threw on the silk crepe negligee and followed him, just as she had done before, on that long-ago night after her mother-in-law had died. "Did Dr. Hewitt's visit overexcite him, do you think?" he asked as they went. "I don't know, ma'am," Wallis said. "He's almost as bad as he was after the old madam died--you remember?" "Oh, yes," said Phyllis mechanically. "I remember." * * * * * Allan lay so exactly as he had on that other night, that the strange surroundings seemed incongruous. Just the same, except that his restlessness was more visible, because he had more power of motion. She bent and held the nervously clenching hands, as she had before. "What is it, Allan?" she said soothingly. "Nothing," said her husband savagely. "Nerves, hysteria--any other silly womanish thing a cripple could have. Let me alone, Phyllis. I wish you could put me out of the way altogether!" Phyllis made herself laugh, though her heart hurried with fright. She had seen Allan suffer badly before--be apathetic, irritable, despondent, but never in a state where he did not cling to her. "I can't let you alone," she said brightly. "I've come to stay with you till you feel quieter.... Would you rather I talked to you, or kept quiet?" "Oh, do your wifely duty, whatever it is," he said.... "It was a mistake, the whole thing. You've done more than your duty, child, but--oh, you'd better go away." Phyllis's heart turned over. Was it as bad as this? Was he as sick of her as this? "You mean--you think," she faltered, "it was a mistake--our marriage?" "Yes," he said restlessly. "Yes.... It wasn't fair." She had no means of knowing that he meant it was unfair to her. She held on to herself, though she felt her face turning cold with the sudden pallor of fright. "I think it can be annulled," she said steadily. "No, I suppose it wasn't fair." She stopped to get her breath and catch at the only things that mattered--steadiness, quietness, ability to soothe Allan! "It can be annulled," she said again evenly. "But listen to me now, Allan. It will take quite a while. It can't be done to-night, or before you are stronger. So for your own sake you must try to rest now. Everything shall come right. I promise you it shall be annulled. But forget it now, please. I am going to hold your wrists and talk to you, recite things for you, till you go back to sleep." She wondered afterwards how she could have spoken with that hard serenity, how she could have gone steadily on with story after story, poem after poem, till Allan's grip on her hands relaxed, and he fell into a heavy, tired sleep. [Illustration: "BUT YOU SEE--HE'S--ALL I HAVE ... GOOD-NIGHT, WALLIS"]