he was right, but he has not taken into
account your age, Fanny."

"I could not take it yesterday, and Jack was
very angry."

"You take the medicine I shall send you
when I return directly it comes; take it every
two hours till the sickness abates. Now, come,
lie back, Fanny; you are very weak."

The pale worn face turned towards him and
smiled on him, then the head sank back on the
pillow, and the weary eyelids closed.

"I cannot shake off this stupor, John. Goodbye,
and bless you, dear John."

The doctor signed to Letty to leave the
room. When she had done so, and the door
closed, he sat down by his sister's bedside,
sorrow-stricken and thoughtful; in that silence,
broken only by the tick of the watch at the bed
head, and the deep breathing of the sleeper, he
fell on his knees, and prayed for help and
guidance from the Giver of all Good. Then he
took out his repeater and waited till the minute-
hand reached the half hour. It was three
o'clock that had struck when Letty closed the
door. Then he took his sister's hand and woke
her.

"What, John, are you here still? How good
of you! I thought I was alone. I feel better
now. It was that dreadful medicine that hurt
me."

"Fanny," said the doctor, with all a woman's
tenderness, "when you made your will in the
summer, you told me you left all your money to
Jack on his marriage with Letty. Now, I want
you to do me a kindness."

"I left it all to dear Jack; I told him so.
What kindness can I show you, brother, a poor
dying old woman like myself?"

"Alter the will this evening, and leave me
the money during my lifetime. It will be a check
on Jack, if he grows extravagant or wild."

"Oh, he won't, dear boy. Yet, as you will,
John. You have always some kind and good
object in what you do."

"I will bring a lawyer and witness in half an
hour. It might ruin even a well-intentioned
lad, and make him idle. Later in life it will
perhaps come better."

In the room below the doctor found Letty,
anxious and apprehensive of some evil, but she
scarcely knew what.

"Oh, uncle, uncle," she said, in tears, "auntie
is not in danger, is she? Oh, do say she is not in
danger."

"By God's help, Letty, she will be out of
danger in a few hours. It is well I came.
Letty, you love me, and you love my son
Jack?"

"I do! I do! you know how I do, dearly,
uncle."

"If you love us both, you will then do as I
tell you, and not deviate a single iota, for much
depends on what I am now going to say. But
first let your man George ride quick into town
and get this prescription made up."

What the doctor's instructions were, must not
at present be revealed.

V.

Three hours later the doctor was in his
surgery, examining a drawer of dangerous drugs
that was generally kept locked. He had just
closed it, and was musing with one elbow on his
desk and his head on his hand, when there
came a step behind him. He looked round; it
was John.

"John," he said, and he said no more. But
there was an infinite depth of reproachful
sadness in that one word.

"Dear father," said his adopted son, "I deeply
regret the events of last night. I was tempted
to stay at a farmer's harvest-home, and I talked
nonsense (did I not?) about debt and wanting
money. It was all wandering. Forget it all—
it meant nothing. It was foolish, wrong of me.
I'm sorry for it."

"Let it be the last time, Jack," said the doctor;
"it is harder to come up hill one step, than
to go down twenty. Do not break my heart
by becoming a bad man. By-the-by, have you
sent Aunt Fanny the medicine, and how is she?"

"Oh, pulling through all right. She's as
tough as nails."

"What prescription are you using?"

"This," and John Harkness held up a bottle
of simple tonic drops. "The old lady wants
strength. Oh, she'll do, if she can only get
stronger."

The doctor sighed, and said, "The tonic is
right." At that moment the surgery door
opened, and an old farmer presented himself.

"Why, Farmer Whitehead, how are you?"

"Ailing, doctor, thank ye, with the flinzy.
Uncommon bad, to be sure; and so is my missus."

"Ah, I thought Jack here had been attending
you for months; you are down in our
books. How is this, Jack?"

The young man's colour rose. "It is a
mistake of mine. I'm a regular duffer for memory;
it was Robinson at Woodcot I meant. I'll put
it all right."

"Just see to Farmer Whitehead then, now.
Give him a diaphoretic and ipecacuanha to keep
the pores open. I'll go and dress for dinner."

"Steeped in lies," the doctor muttered, as
he shut the surgery door behind him. "I fed
this serpent, and now he stings me; but still
no one shall know his shame, for I may still, by
God's help, save him from crime, and leave him
time and opportunities for repentance. Heaven
have mercy upon him! Yes, still—still I may
save the boy I once loved so much."

Dinner was over. The doctor had been
cheerful, as usual, and had made no further
reference to the unhappy events of the night
before. John Harkness had grown boisterous
and social as ever, seeing the doctor satisfied
with so brief an apology.

"Jack," said the doctor, warming to the
conversation, "go and get a bottle of that thirty-
two port; I feel to-day as if I wanted a specially
good bottle."

John Harkness went, and returned in a few
minutes with the bottle, carrying it carefully,
with the chalk mark uppermost.