a phial of laudanum. "This is the way. I can pull myself together with
it. It will save his life." There was a dogged look in his face.

"Well? well?" she said. "Oh, my dear father, will you not keep him
here?"

A peculiar cold smile hovered about his lips. "But there is danger to me
in this . . . and remember, he is very old!"

"Oh," she cried, "how can you be so shocking, so cruel!" She rocked
herself to and fro. "If it will save him--and you need not take it
again, ever!"

"But, I tell you--"

"Do you not hear him--he is dying!" She was mad with grief; she hardly
knew what she said.

Without a word he dropped the tincture swiftly in a wine-glass of water,
drank it off, shivered, drew himself up with a start, gave a sigh as if
some huge struggle was over, and went in to where the old man was. Three
hours after he told his wife that her father was safe.

When, after a hasty kiss, she left him and went into the room of
sickness, and the door closed after her, standing where she had left him
he laughed a hard crackling laugh, and said between his teeth:

"An upset price!"

Then he poured out another portion of the dark tincture--the largest he