"No!"
The word was only a gasp and the face Mary turned for a moment on the girl was livid. The eyes shone with hate. "You—you beast!" she muttered chokingly.
Esther turned a shade paler, but otherwise gave no sign that she had heard. "Mother, just try, you are doing so well, so splendidly. The doctor says …"
"Be quiet—be quiet! I hate him. I won't try. I won't be tortured—oh, why can't you all leave me alone!" She began to sob and moan under her breath, careless even of a possible passerby. Fortunately there was no one, and they were already within sight of home. Esther, very white, supported the shaking woman with her arm and they hurried on together. At the door she would still have accompanied her but Mary flung herself angrily from her hold and ran up the stairs with sudden feverish strength. Esther turned into the living room and dropped into the nearest chair.
She was still sitting there without having removed either hat or gloves when, a little later, Callandar entered.
"Well, nurse," with a faint smile, "how are things to-day?" His quick eye had noticed in a moment the girl's closed eyes and listless attitude, but nothing in his tone betrayed it.
"Very well, I think, until a little while ago. We were late in getting home from the dressmaker's—"
"I see. You look rather done up. The fact is you are overdoing things.
Rather foolish, don't you think?"
"No," stubbornly. "I am all right."
"You are exhausted and there is no need. Things are going well. The dose is steadily diminishing, more quickly than she suspects. It looks as if we might begin to breathe again. It is a great gain to feel reasonably sure that she has no more of the stuff hidden anywhere. If she had, she would have used it during that last crisis."