"You should not have gotten up," Alan declared, and the human sympathy in his voice brought a lump in her throat. She saw his clear-cut features, wavy dark hair, and whimsical mouth through a mist which she strove to wink away. "I'm afraid you have overdone things a bit." Miriam shook her head. "I could not rest in my bedroom," she said. "There must be something that I can do, Doctor Roberts; unless you distrust me too much." Her voice shook with feeling, and she paused abruptly, unable to go on. The two men exchanged glances, then Roberts rose. "There, there!" he exclaimed, a trifle awkwardly. "Just take things quietly, Miss Ward, while Alan asks you a few questions. It is his business, you know." "Just so." Alan Mason nodded reassuringly. "I'm a reporter and also a cousin of Paul's; in fact, his nearest relative. How did Paul seem last night--before you fell asleep?" "He--" Her pause was infinitesimal. "He appeared much excited, even irrational, but at times his mind was perfectly clear. He took a little nourishment." She stopped and passed one hand before her eyes. Her dreams still haunted her. Could she truthfully say where imagination had dovetailed with reality? Was Betty Carter's visit, her marriage to Paul Abbott but a figment of her overcharged brain? Would her hearers think her a lunatic as well as criminally negligent if she went into details? Doctor Roberts broke the pause. "I have looked over your chart," he stated, "and find that the last entry was made soon after midnight. You made no record of any marked change in his condition." Miriam swallowed hard. "The collapse must have come suddenly," she said. "At what time do you think he died?" Roberts eyed her in silence for a minute. "Come over to the bed," he directed, and not waiting for her, turned on his heel. The long side curtains of the four-post bedstead were stretched across it, and as Miriam laid her hand on one of them to draw it aside, Alan Mason checked her. "I found this wad of cotton under the bed," he began. "Had you any occasion last night to use chloroform?" "No." Miriam looked at him in startled wonder. "No." "Then," Roberts scanned her closely, "how comes it that you, a trained nurse, are unaware that you were chloroformed?" Slowly Miriam took in the meaning of his words. "Chloroformed?" she gasped. "_I?_" It was Alan Mason who answered and not Doctor Roberts. "I detected the odor of chloroform when I carried you to your bedroom," he said. "So then I came in here--found my cousin, Paul, dead--and this cotton under the bed." Miriam stared at her companions in dumbfounded silence for a moment. "My attack of nausea--" she faltered. "Was the result of the chloroform," declared Doctor Roberts. His voice deepened. "We also detected its odor about Paul Abbott." "Good God!" Miriam drew back. "Was Mr. Abbott anesthetized?" Roberts' gaze never left her face in the lengthened pause.