"Ah, then, of course I am better," she remarked, with a sigh of relief.
"Yes," I said, "you may be able to have a nice sleep by-and-by, but there are one or two points I should like to talk over with you first. I shall not take up more than a moment or two of your time."
Mildred left the room, and Miss Wilton seated herself with her back to the light.
"I may as well state frankly," I said at once, "that when I came into the room just now, your condition filled me with alarm. You were terribly weak, your respiration was hurried, your pulse quick. You had symptoms also of spinal exhaustion. I came to tell you that Captain Oliver had failed to get the medicine which you sent for."
"Why failed?" she asked, in a quick, nervous voice.
"Because you had not sent a prescription. Chemists are forbidden by law to supply certain poisonous drugs without written instructions from a medical man. No such instructions accompanied your letter; therefore the medicine was not supplied."
"Did you go with Jim to see the chemist?"
"I walked with him to Market Lea."
"And the—the—" Miss Wilton half rose from her chair, "the chemist showed you my letter?"
"No, the chemist was quite faithful to the trust you reposed in him."
She sank back again on her seat, while an expression of intense relief swept over her young but worn face.
"Your little sister met us on our return home, and told us that you were in a state of suffering," I continued, "so I hastened to the rescue."
"You are very kind," she replied, "and you have relieved my suffering for the time."
She shuddered slightly as she spoke. She knew but too well how evanescent the small dose of morphia I had injected would be in its effects.
"It is tiresome about that prescription," she continued. "Nothing relieves me like that special medicine."
"Then you are subject to these attacks?"
"Oc—occasionally." This word came out with great reluctance.
"Perhaps I could write you a prescription somewhat similar to the one you have lost?"
She looked at me with intense eagerness. Then her eyes fell.
"No, thank you," she said. "My medicine partakes of the nature of a—a quack medicine. It suits me better than anything else. I think I'll send for a nurse who has often been of use to me. Her name is Collins. I should like to telegraph for her. That can be managed, can it not?"
"Certainly," I answered; "where does she live?"
"In London."
"She cannot get to you before the evening," I answered. "And in the meantime you may have another attack. Of course, I am not prepared to say what causes them." Here I looked hard at her. She trembled and shrank from me. "I am not prepared to say what causes your attacks," I repeated; "but I have have seen precisely similar ones occasioned by the abstinence from morphia in the victims of morphonism. A small dose of the poison invariably gives relief, as it did in your case. Only that it is quite impossible to imagine that you can be the victim of such a pernicious habit, I should say that you took morphia secretly."
"As if that were likely," she stammered; "I—I hope—I should not do anything wicked of that sort."
"It certainly is a very wicked habit," I replied, "and leads to the most disastrous results: the wreck of life in its fullest sense, the destruction of all the moral qualities. For instance, the morphia-maniac thinks nothing of telling lies, however truthful he may have been before he became the victim of this habit. Well, I will leave you now, as you look inclined to sleep, and sleep will be beneficial to you. If you feel a return of the painful symptoms which prostrated you this morning, send for me, and I will inject a little more morphia."
"Oh, thank you," she answered, with a look of gratitude. And now she prepared to settle herself comfortably on the sofa.
"You won't forget to telegraph for Collins?" she said, as I was leaving the room.
"You must give me her address," I answered.
She supplied me with it, and I left her.
I must confess that I felt much puzzled how to act. Miss Wilton was a morphia-maniac. Her flimsy half denial of the fact was but in keeping with her disease. Should I tell the truth to poor Oliver?
I thought over the circumstances of the case briefly, and then resolved to take Mildred Onslow into my confidence. I saw her alone immediately after lunch, and told her what I had discovered.
"How dreadful!" she exclaimed, when I had finished my short story. "It seems almost impossible to believe that Frances, of
