"Go on, please," said Sophy.
Anne took up the poker, and began breaking the big lump of coal in the grate as she said this. Little spirals of greenish-yellow smoke escaped from the cracks made by the poker, then jetted into flame. She was so sorry for this beautiful, scared woman, that she looked doggedly at the lump of coal all the time that she was speaking.
"It's just that Mr. Chesney is getting extra morphia—I mean taking it himself—lots of it——" she began bluntly.
"Oh!" cried Sophy. It was a sort of gasp. Then she said hurriedly: "But it's impossible, nurse. How can he get it? Gaynor, his valet, and I had all there is. Now we've turned it over to you—with both the syringes."
"He's getting it, ma'am," said Anne firmly. "And he's taking it hypodermically, too."
"Oh, don't you think you are mistaken?"
"No, Mrs. Chesney. I couldn't be."
"But—but—— Have you——"
She could not bring it out. She could not ask this little stranger woman whether she had searched Cecil's things for the stuff—for another syringe.
"Yes, I've hunted—thoroughly—through everything," Anne said quite as a matter of course, guessing what she had meant to ask. "He sleeps so heavily, when he does sleep—from the accumulated effects, you know—that I've even been able to feel between the mattresses. I've searched the edges for a rip where he might have stuffed it inside. I've looked through everything—but his letter-box."