I opened my eyes, and there was Helen smiling at me—not in mediaeval dress this time, but with a bunch of glowing violets at her belt. How curious for her to come to the laboratory at night! I looked about: there was Knowlton sitting near with the cheerfulest of grins on his face, and Mr. Claybourne too. What was happening? I made an effort, as I realized I had something of importance to tell Knowlton.

"The Texas formula—" words seemed strangely difficult to say—"Prospero has it. It's in the blue bottle with the rubber, cork—"

"Hush, dear," I heard Helen say, "you mustn't try to talk just yet," and she patted my pillow, kissed me, and gave me something cool to drink. I looked blankly about, but the room was quite dark—I was in bed!

"Isn't this the laboratory?" I asked helplessly. My head ached and whirled; my thoughts refused to work at this new problem.

"No, dearest," Helen's gentle voice said, "you are at home—with me."

"Home?" I wrestled vaguely with this idea. Where was home?—with me?

"At my house, Ted, dear—here in Deep Harbor," Helen whispered, her lips brushing my cheek.

"Your knee—you mustn't stand," I faltered, some recollection fighting through the chaos in my head.

"It's almost well, Ted dear. Watch me walk!" and she took a few steps away, then back to me.

"But last night—?" I gave it up as Helen put her cool hand over my month to silence me.

"Well, well," I heard a hearty sounding voice say at the door, "it's quite seasonable weather for Thanksgiving, isn't it? Snowing like the deuce—whew! And how's our patient this morning? I'll bet he slept all right last night after that potion I gave him," and a frock-coated, checked-waistcoated man walked up to my bed.

"Hello," he said quickly as he looked at me, speaking in a low tone to Helen. "When did the delirium leave him?"

"He has just waked up," I heard her reply.

"Who are you?" I said, almost aggressively, to the new arrival.

"Who am I? Come, that's a good one," he chuckled, apparently immensely pleased. "Who am I, Claybourne, eh?"

"Ted, this is Dr. Sinclair, who has been looking after you ever since."

"Ever since what?" I persisted. It was all a most annoying puzzle. "Helen, can't you explain?—please!" I said petulantly.

"Now then, how's our temperature today?"—and before I could say more Dr. Sinclair rendered me speechless with a little glass rod in my mouth that I was mortally afraid of breaking. I lay there, looking first at him and then at Helen, who smiled encouragement at me; Dr. Sinclair kept his eyes on a noisy gold watch. Rebellion was gathering headway within: why was I being treated like a child and put to bed? Some doctor's silly whim; he probably had made Helen believe I'd been overworking, when there was the Texas formula to solve. It was preposterous to lose time this way! What was the matter with Knowlton, that he let them do it?

"Well!" exclaimed the doctor, walking to the window with his thermometer and letting in the light. I could see snow on the roofs opposite. "We are almost normal again—not quite, but almost." Helen clapped her hands and gave a little cry. He shook the thermometer vigorously, put it away in his coat, put on his glasses, and surveyed me over the tops of them from the window. "No excitement yet—no worry, remember that, Miss Helen. Absolute quiet—nature's restorative, you know—that's the word. Give nature a chance, that's all we need now."

"You don't need to talk about me as if I were a baby," I interjected, my eyes burning with a strange anger.

"Hush, dear—you trust me, don't you?" I heard Helen say.

"Of course," I said, baffled and abandoning the struggle. It was all right to leave it in her hands.

"That's one of the symptoms," Dr. Sinclair coughed into the palm of his hand. I could hear every syllable. "Extreme excitability and irritation; the least little thing will arouse it. Hence caution, my dear young lady, caution. Keep on with the jellied boullion—not too much—just a few, spoonfuls—"

"Damn it, I'm not an invalid!" I tried to shout, but my voice broke, and only husky, throaty sounds came forth. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Claybourne—I didn't mean to swear before Helen—but I don't like that smug, oily, self-satisfied man—" and I pointed my finger at Dr. Sinclair. The latter took a step or two backward, like a person retreating from an unpleasant footing.

"Ahem!" coughed Dr. Sinclair. "I think, Miss Helen, it will be wiser to tell him—you can do it best, without exciting him. Er—I'll look in again this evening." Mr. Claybourne accompanied him downstairs.

"What are they planning to do with me now?" and I tried to rise up on one elbow, but found it unaccountably beyond my strength. Helen put one arm around me.

"You believe in me, don't you, Ted?"

"Yes," and I clutched her hand. "Please keep the others away from me. I must tell you something—it's important—"

Knowlton arose. "Don't bother about that now, Ted," he said. "I know all about the Texas formula—it's all right—do you get me?"

"I think I'd go, Mr. Knowlton," Helen said. "Let me tell him all by myself."

Knowlton bowed and shook her hand. Then he came over to me and offered his hand to me.

"Ted, I'm not much of a talker; this is just to tell you I'm glad."

I took his hand, since he seemed to wish it, and he left the room. I looked around at Helen: "Why did you come to me at the laboratory last night in mediaeval dress when Prospero was trying an incantation?"

Her face clouded, and she hastened to me, laying her cool hand on my forehead.

"Hush, Teddy, sweetheart," she put her face close to mine. I could feel that her eyelashes were wet.

"It was the formula—not an incantation," I went on—"it must have been the signs of the Zodiac that confused me."

"Teddy, do you know me?—it's Helen," she kissed into my ear.

"I know, dear, I know," I said. "I love you, Lady Grey Eyes."

She kissed me on the mouth. "Then listen, Ted, and try not to interrupt. Just lie quietly here and hold my hand."

"Of course," I promised.

"Prospero was a very wicked man, Ted—"

"He drank and was a drug fiend, but he does know the formula—"

"You promised not to interrupt." Every word of her gentle voice was soothing; I could feel it steal over me, driving away a great fatigue. "Quite quiet, Ted?"

"Yes."

"That night at the laboratory he tried to poison you, Ted, with fumes from a mixture in a dish. You were unconscious when they found you."

I laughed weakly, it all sounded so preposterous.

"You don't know chemistry, dear," I said, feeling quite superior. "He couldn't poison me that way without poisoning himself."

"He did," Helen said very slowly. "When they found you, Prospero was dead."

It took a long time for this to get into my brain in plausible shape.

"Prospero—dead?" I puzzled.

"Yes, dear."

"But there was nothing poisonous in the fumes of the Texas formula—only an aromatic oil to deceive meddlers."

"Prospero used that oil as a solvent for the poison—you see, Ted, I've been studying chemistry too—I shall read you the analysis we had made, tomorrow."

"Analysis—then you've found out the Texas formula?"

"Yes, Ted. It's all right—the factory is making it now."

"Did you work it out?" I asked—the puzzle was only slowly unravelling.

"No, dear—my chemistry hasn't gone that far! The young assistant Knowlton got from the Owens' Company did it."

"And the poison?"

"That was the difficulty. When we first got to you, Ted, we didn't know what it was, or what antidote to use. Your heart had slowed down to almost nothing—"

"There is a poison chart with a list of the symptoms and antidotes in my desk."

"Yes, Ted. I found that, and we got Dr. Sinclair quickly."

"You found it?"

"It was about five in the morning when one of the foremen happened to go into your laboratory. It made him ill, for the place was reeking—you and Prospero were lying on the floor. He threw open the windows and telephoned Mr. Knowlton. He dressed and called up father, and I went too, in spite of my knee."

"But why did Knowlton call up your father?"

"To let me know, Ted. Wasn't that dear of him? And I was really able to help. They wanted to take you to a hospital, but dad wouldn't listen to that—and so here you are."

I kissed her hand and tried to put in order the story as she had told it.

"I wonder why it didn't kill me, if it killed Prospero?"

I felt her clutch my hand.

"I wonder too, Ted darling," she whispered. "The doctor says your youth and constitution saved you. I wonder if that explains all?"

"Perhaps there was something to help—your love and care," I smiled.

"Even something beyond that, Ted dear. You see, Prospero had no chance, the doctor said, because of his drinking and drug-taking."

"It must have been a shock to 'mother.'" I don't know why I hadn't thought of her before, or why I thought of her now. Helen laughed one of her "questing laughs," the happy kind that only I was privileged to hear.

"Poor mother! She telegraphed for Miss Hershey to come and chaperon me and went herself to Asheville until Christmas. To have a real invalid in the house was the last straw!"

"But Leonidas!" I cried. "The poor hound is shut up in my rooms."

"No, he isn't, Ted. Dad went for him. He is asleep in front of the fire downstairs."

"So you are in Miss Hershey's hands?"

"Yes, but she is wonderfully tame, Ted, now she knows about you."

"What a marvellous forty-eight hours it has been!" I said. "We set forth after the questing beast in the morning—and before two suns, find love and life and death, all very near one another and each of them lurking in the most unlikely places."

"I think, Ted, that that is always the way one finds them—love, and life, and death are very near together—everywhere just as we have read of them in Mallory."

She went to the window and looked out.

"The snow is getting deep, Ted—you wouldn't know Myrtle Boulevard."

"Yes, I should," I answered. "It is the way leading down to Camelot."

She smiled, and the snow-light shone on her face, making her beauty luminous.

"It's Thanksgiving Day, Ted—did you know it?"

"Then I've been here—"

"Ten days." She came back to my side.

"Thanksgiving," I heard her murmur to herself—"dear God! I'm thankful."

"And you have nursed me all this time?"

"No, dear. You have a trained nurse to look after you—it was too serious to take any chances. I'm only the girl who loves you," and she tucked a violet over my left ear, laughing with the old ring of mischief in her voice. "Now you've talked enough and must go to sleep. I'll come back soon and bring you your Thanksgiving dinner—some delicious jellied bouillion. No—not another word," and she was gone, closing the door after her.

Naturally I could not sleep. In the first place, I argued with myself, my head not only feels queer but it aches abominably; in the second place, enough has happened to give insomnia to all the seven sleepers of Ephesus. The latter thought pleased me, and I laughed all by myself. My mind began to stroll about again in a waking dream, partly caused by my weakness and partly by the delirium which had ceased only a few hours ago. Why had Prospero tried to kill me? It seemed a motiveless thing to do, particularly as he had chosen to involve himself. Must have been insane, I concluded. He was fairly skilful about it, too—how did they know I hadn't killed him? There we both were, and no one to say who put the poison in the dish. This worried me. Suppose they ask me awkward questions at the inquest? I must talk to Helen about that. Helen! I hardly dared think about her—her love was the most wonderful thing in the world—why had she given it to me? How had I deserved it? It was a miracle one couldn't analyse....

"Ted, dear, it's time to take your medicine." I almost sat up, I was so surprised. I had slept, after all—most soundly. Furthermore, I felt refreshed and stronger. There stood Helen in the door, with a buxom-looking young woman in nurse's uniform beside her, carrying a glass on a tray.

"This is your nurse, Miss Conover, Ted."

"How do you do?" I said to this person, who began to bang my pillows about in a most business-like way, as much as to imply she was not in the habit of putting up with any nonsense from her patients.

"Quite well, thank you," and she presented a spoonful of medicine.

"What's in it?" I asked. "I'm a chemist, and I don't like to take unknown compounds."

"You aren't a biological chemist, are you?"

"No."

"Then you'd better follow your doctor's orders."

I felt that curious anger against strangers coming back.

"If you don't tell me what it is—I'll—I'll spill it on the floor," I said.

Helen stepped forward quickly.

"You'll take it from me, Ted, won't you?" and she offered the spoon. "It's a sedative, dear—we had to give you such quantities of stimulants to counteract the poison."

Calm returned, and I meekly licked the spoon.

"Take her away!" I whispered to Helen, rolling my head toward the aggressively efficient Miss Conover, who was tidying the room energetically.

"Ted, dear, you are getting well now. You must get used to strangers about you, especially when they have been so kind to you as Dr. Sinclair and Miss Conover," and Helen patted my shoulder.

Miss Conover joined in: "Didn't I tell you, Miss Helen, they was a whole lot easier to get on with delirious than convalescent? You was wishing for him to come out of it, but you ain't had my experience. I'd rather put a straight jacket on a nut than fetch a pipe and tobacco for a man the day before his hospital discharge."

Helen looked down at me with her eyes dancing, and the black murder that had been swelling up in me, during Miss Conover's disquisition on the care of men, subsided.

"I'll send her away, Ted," she said, kissing me. "I believe this time you are right."

Mr. Claybourne came in, radiating cheerfulness.

"Well, Ted, old man, how's the boy?" he shouted.

"Quietly, dad, quietly," reproved Helen.

"He's that touchy! It's only the effect of the fever. They are nearly always like that afterwards. Why, I've seen 'em pass away growling at everybody right up to the finish," Miss Conover threw in for good measure.

"I'm very grateful to you, Mr. Claybourne," I stammered, ignoring the nurse.

"Oh, tell all that to Helen," he laughed. "She's responsible, anyway. Come, little girl, it's two o'clock, and there's a big turkey and fixin's waiting downstairs. You'll have to leave Ted awhile to eat Thanksgiving dinner with your dad."

"There's a dramatic choice for you, Helen—parental love and duty versus self-sacrifice beside the pallid cot of the lowly and sick," I smiled at her.

"Dad, Ted's recovering a sense of humour—it's a little clumsy and conceited still, but it's coming back! Dad,—why can't we have this room cleared and our table set up here? You know Ted hasn't seen a Thanksgiving turkey since he was a little boy. They don't have Thanksgiving in England—and it seems so mean to go downstairs and stuff all by ourselves!"

Mr. Claybourne looked doubtfully about the room. I sympathized with his feelings, for a sick room is the last place one would choose for a banquet.

"That would be too much like writing Hamlet in a charnel house. Can't you carry me downstairs? and I'll sit with Leonidas before the fire while the rest of you gorge," I urged.

"How about that, Miss Conover?" Claybourne asked. Miss Conover looked at me, and I suspected revenge to be brooding in her eye. Helen added her entreaty, and the nurse wavered.

"I suppose there'll be less trouble in the end if we carry him down, though what Dr. Sinclair will say, goodness knows," Miss Conover conceded grudgingly. "But it'll only be for an hour, and then no more talk or visitors today."

"Agreed," I cried; "any price you say, nurse."

"Miss Conover," she corrected.

"I beg your pardon—good nature made me careless." Helen giggled. I was rolled up in dressing gown and blankets and carried downstairs by Mr. Claybourne, Helen and Miss Conover followed with pillows and miscellaneous glassware. Leonidas took a sniff at me and then greeted me with the most exuberant enthusiasm, knocking over at least one piece of furniture by the sheer power in his wagging tail. I had an armchair before a fire of crackling hickory logs; there was a small table beside me, with some of Helen's violets in a little vase in the centre.

Helen, her father, and Miss Conover sat at their gaily decked table, on which was a mountain of autumn fruit piled about an enormous pumpkin. The maid brought in a turkey as big as a boar's head. Mr. Claybourne busied himself with opening a bottle of champagne. Helen insisted that the turkey be placed before me and helped me carve the first slice before it was removed to Mr. Claybourne's seat.

"Isn't it a shame you can't eat any of it," Helen cried. Just then I did not care to. To tell the truth, the smell of the food made me feel so ill I was not certain I could stick the dinner out. But I knew better than to give Miss Conover an inkling of this. "It isn't as if one could make a dash for the upper deck, either," I thought to myself. At a critical moment the nurse placed some jellied bouillon before me and threatened forcible feeding. "One inch nearer with a spoonful of that stuff, and there'll be a real catastrophe," I murmured inwardly. I violently waved it away. Helen flew to my rescue. "I think if we leave Ted quite alone, he'll eat it by himself when he feels like it," she advised Miss Conover.

"The doctor ordered him to eat it," the nurse stubbornly contended. Helen conquered her, and I was left, not exactly at peace, but in a state of armed neutrality within. By concentrating my attention on the dancing flames in the chimney I kept the internal factions quiet.

Mr. Claybourne ran through his series of champagne toasts, repeating all the funny ones we had heard last time. He was eager for me to have one sip, but Helen stood firm. Miss Conover sat in stern disapproval of the champagne, her glass inverted before her, as if to emphasize with a kind of crystal exclamation point her opinion of such proceedings.

"Where is Miss Hershey?" I asked, as soon as I had the stomach for such a question.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Ted. She's dining out with an ex-governor of Georgia—I believe a third cousin twice removed of her mother's aunt, or some complicated Southern family relationship like that."

"I thought she said he was her cousin," Mr. Claybourne corrected. Helen winked at me; Miss Hershey would have called it "unmaidenly."

"I believe all Southerners who are anybody are each other's cousins, dad. Anyway, she said they didn't pay much attention to Thanksgiving in the South, and she preferred not to be here."

"The bloody shirt again, eh?" said Mr. Claybourne.

"I can't imagine Miss Hershey in a bloody shirt," I murmured.

"Really Mr. Edward!" Miss Conover exclaimed, half rising from the table. Helen laughed. "I don't think such remarks is nice," Miss Conover continued.

"H'm," said Mr. Claybourne, evidently wondering what it was all about.

"How's your foot, Ted?" Helen called out.

"There's nothing the matter with Ted's foot, is there?" said Mr. Claybourne.

"Not a thing!" snapped Miss Conover.

"There's your answer, Lady Grey Eyes," I laughed.

"What are we talking about?" Mr. Claybourne inquired.

"It's just a private joke between Ted and me, dad. You wouldn't understand," Helen explained.

"Then I don't think it's very polite of you to refer to it before others," her father grumbled. "I'm surprised at you, Ted."

"My opinion exactly," Miss Conover hastened to agree.

The tension was broken by the arrival of the maid with three kinds of pie—mince, pumpkin, and cranberry. Upon the later arrival of coffee, Miss Conover got up from the table.

"Time's up," she announced. "We'll carry Mr. Edward upstairs."

"A bargain's a bargain, and I'll go quietly," I said, "but damn it all just the same."

"Edward, will you oblige me by not swearing before Helen," Mr. Claybourne declaimed.

"I beg your pardon—and Helen's, if she wants it. Happiness has a bad effect on my manners."

They put me away in the dark room....

In the morning Knowlton dropped in to see me on the way to the office. Dr. Sinclair had called first and expressed approval of my progress. He also gave permission to talk business for half an hour, which was why I had Knowlton summoned by telephone.

"Well, Ted, our friend nearly did for you," he said with his diabolic grin, as he drew a chair alongside my bed. "I certainly was scared until the doc said he thought he could pull you through." I knew that for Knowlton to admit this much was for him to confess he had passed through an emotional crisis. Of course the way he put it was part of the "hard-headed" pose of all our race, whether English or American. It is the half-unconscious way in which we hide our sentimentality when the latter collides with reality.

"Thanks, Knowlton," I replied; "it would be awkward for the business if I got out ahead of time." I could not resist teasing him this much.

"Wasn't just what I meant, Ted," he s............