"Is ill. She has lost her child."
"Which?" shrieked Elsley.
"A boy whom she should have had."
Elsley only beat on the table; then—
"Give me the bottle, Tom!"
"What bottle?"
"The laudanum;—there in the cupboard."
"I shall do no such thing. You are poisoning yourself."
"Let me then! I must, I tell you! I can live on nothing else. I shall go mad if I do not have it. I should have been mad by now. Nothing else keeps off these fits;—I feel one coming now. Curse you! give me the bottle!"
"What fits?"