"D—don't be so hard on me, Bicky."
"Don't call me Bicky. And please go. I don't want to be rude, but I shall lose my temper if you don't."
Carron's pinched face quivered. "I—I am very ill Brigit," he said in a hurried, deprecating way. "I—I am not sleeping at all, my nerves are—rotten. And I thought I'd die if I couldn't see you. Don't be any harder on me than—than necessary."
She sat down on the arm of a chair, and looked at him closely.
"You do look ill—very ill. And you look—I say, Gerald, are you taking anything?"
He gave a shrill, cackling laugh. "Taking anything. No. You mean morphine or something of that kind? Pas si bête, my dear. Oh, no, I have always had a perfect horror of anything like that. W—why?"
"Because—I think you are," she returned coolly. "Show me your left arm, Gerald."
"No, no, you are mad, my dear,—I assure you I don't. I give you my word of honour——"
She came to him, and taking his arm in her strong hands pushed up his sleeves and studied his emaciated arm for a few seconds in silence.
"I thought as much," she commented, as he almost whimpered in his helpless annoyance.