"I--I went out with Luther, Hugh, and I didn't realize that I was gone so long. You've missed two doses!" She noticed that Hugh called her by her given name altogether now. Hugh laughed a sad little laugh. "Well, I've had the one for this hour at least. I--I tried to take it alone. I guess I won't try that again. It stuck in my throat and I got a strangling spell. I coughed till--well, I thought I was going to get out of taking medicine altogether. It's a terrible fear that grips a fellow when he gets something stuck in his throat and knows that he can't lift his head off his pillow. It isn't so much that he's afraid to die--it's the death struggle he's afraid of." Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hugh Noland closed his eyes and did not see the effect his words produced upon Elizabeth. By some sort of psychological process he had placed that death struggle before her very eyes. Hugh, all unconscious that he had made any impression, unconscious that her attitude toward death differed from his own, or that his death could mean much more to her than deliverance from the presence and care of him, lay with his eyes closed, thinking his own bitter thoughts. There was indeed enough in Hugh Noland's appearance to terrify the girl as he lay before her, wasted and woebegone, his low forehead blue-veined and colourless, his hands blue-veined and transparent, and all his shrunken figure sharply outlined under the thin summer covering of the bed with ghastly and suggestive significance. Instantly she wanted to go down by his side and with her arms about him give him the sympathy and comfort his lonely heart craved, but because it was so deliciously tempting she distrusted the impulse and, turning hastily, walked out of the room and out of the house, going on a run to her refuge in the willows. But though she agonized till dark she found herself no nearer a solution than before. Hugh felt the distance Elizabeth maintained and also the fact that she was not well. How he hated it when she had to lift him for his medicine. Doctor Morgan had especially talked about her lifting when she was at first convalescing. His heart was very bad that night. About three o'clock the next afternoon Elizabeth tiptoed in to see if he slept. "I'm awake," he said without opening his eyes. Always when Hugh did not open his eyes Elizabeth was filled with premonitions. He was very pinched and wan to-day. With a pain at her own heart, Elizabeth brought a fresh glass of water for his medicine. She had to speak to him to get him ready to take it from her hand. Kneeling, she put her arm under the pillow to raise his head while he drank.