somewhat for the change in Secord. But, seeing how fond the man was of
his wife, Medallion gave up that idea. It was not liquor, for Secord
never touched it. One day, however, when Medallion was selling the
furniture of a house, he put up a feather bed, and, as was his custom--
for he was a whimsical fellow--let his humour have play. He used many
metaphors as to the virtue of the bed, crowning them with the statement
that you slept in it dreaming as delicious dreams as though you had eaten
poppy, or mandragora, or--He stopped short, said, "By jingo, that's it!"
knocked the bed down instantly, and was an utter failure for the rest of
the day.

The wife was longer in discovering the truth, but a certain morning, as
her husband lay sleeping after an all-night sitting with a patient, she
saw lying beside him--it had dropped from his waistcoat pocket--a little
bottle full of a dark liquid. She knew that he always carried his
medicine-phials in a pocket-case. She got the case, and saw that none
was missing. She noticed that the cork of the phial was well worn. She
took it out and smelled the liquid. Then she understood. She waited and
watched. She saw him after he waked look watchfully round, quietly take
a wine-glass, and let the liquid come drop by drop into it from the point
of his forefinger. Henceforth she read with understanding the changes in
his manner, and saw behind the mingled abstraction and fanciful
meditation of his talk.

She had not yet made up her mind what to do. She saw that he hid it from
her assiduously. He did so more because he wished not to pain her than
from furtiveness. By nature he was open and brave, and had always had a
reputation for plainness and sincerity. She was in no sense his equal in
intelligence or judgment, nor even in instinct. She was a woman of more
impulse and constitutional good-nature than depth. It is probable that