When Lady Wychcote heard that her son had admitted Nurse Harding to his room and was sleeping again after taking some nourishment, she felt immensely encouraged and relieved. Anne left her this happy illusion, but with Sophy she was perfectly frank.
"He's got what we nurses sometimes call a 'wet brain,' Mrs. Chesney. That means delirium tremens to a greater or less degree. He must have been sopping up that spirit like a sponge, long before Gaynor suspected him. I fancy we'll have lively times for the next week or so."
This diagnosis proved correct. For three nights and days Nurse Harding scarcely slept, though another nurse was wired for, to be under her orders.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, when Chesney was sleeping under the influence of a moderate dose of morphia, Anne left Nurse Hawkins in charge, and went to Sophy's room. Her little face looked bleached rather than pale. Her skin was so swarthy that it could never reach actual pallor. It looked to-day like an autumn leaf that has been bleached by the following season's rains and suns. In answer to Sophy's exclamation of sympathy, she sank down upon a chair, saying:
"Yes, I am rather done, Mrs. Chesney—just for the moment, you know. I'm going to turn in for a four hours' sleep now. That will set me up again. But somehow I can't rest well, for thinking of where that extra morphia can be hidden. I feel such a fool about it, Mrs. Chesney. It's my duty to find it. I feel a regular amateur—a duffer——"
"Oh, dear Nurse Harding! How can you feel so?" asked Sophy warmly. "It would baffle any one—any one!"
Anne took her peaked little face between her brown fists, resting her elbows on her knees, and shaking her head disconsolately.
"I've been called 'Miss Sherlock Holmes' in my day," she admitted ruefully. "But I rather think my day's gone by. May I sit with you and puzzle over it a bit, before going for my sleep?"
Sophy made her warmly welcome. She even urged the little thing to lie down on her sofa and rest, at least while she cogitated. But Anne refused with resolution.
"No," she said. "No; thank you so much, Mrs. Chesney. Just let me sit here in this armchair. I can think better sitting."