By this time I had got rid of the night nurse, Benham looked after me night and day devotedly. I was no longer indifferent to her. She angered me nevertheless, and we quarrelled bitterly. The least drawback, however, and I could not bear her out of the room. She did not reproach me, I must say that for her. When a horrible bilious attack followed an invalid dinner of melon and _homard à l’américaine_ she stood by my side for hours trying every conceivable remedy. And without a word of reproach. After my hæmorrhage I had a few weeks’ rest from the neuritis and then it started again. I cried out for my forsaken nepenthe, but Peter Kennedy and Nurse Benham for once agreed, persuaded or forced me to codein. Dear half-sister to my beloved morphia, we became friends at once. Three or four days later the neuritis went suddenly, and has never returned. One night I took the nepenthe as well, and that night I saw Margaret Capel again. “When are you going to begin?” she asked me at once. “The very moment I can hold a pen. Now my hand shakes. And Ella or nurse is always here—I am never alone.” “You’ve forgotten all about me,” she said with indescribable sadness. “You won’t write it at all.” “No, I haven’t. I shall. But when one has been so ill ...” I pleaded. “Other people write when they are ill. You remember Green, and Robert Louis Stevenson. As for me, I never felt well.” The next day, before Dr. Kennedy came, I asked Benham to leave us alone together. He still came daily, but she disapproved of his methods and told me that she only stayed in the room and gave him her report because she thought it her duty. They were temperamentally opposed. She had the scientific mind and believed in authority. His was imaginative, desultory, doubtful, but wide and enquiring. Both of them were interested in me, so at least Ella told me. She was satisfied now with my doctoring and nursing. At least a week had passed since she suggested a substitute for either. Dr. Kennedy, when we were alone, said, as he did when nurse was standing there: “Well! how are you getting on?” “Splendidly.” And then, without any circumlocution, although we had not spoken of the matter for weeks, and so much had occurred in the meantime, I asked him: “What did you do about that packet? I want it now. I am quite well enough.” “You have not seen her since?” “Over and over again. She thinks I am shirking my responsibilities.” “Are you well enough to write?” “I am well enough to read. When will you bring me the letters?” “I brought them when I said I would, the day you were taken ill.” “Where are they?”