I felt that curious anger against strangers coming back.
"If you don't tell me what it is—I'll—I'll spill it on the floor," I said.
Helen stepped forward quickly.
"You'll take it from me, Ted, won't you?" and she offered the spoon. "It's a sedative, dear—we had to give you such quantities of stimulants to counteract the poison."
Calm returned, and I meekly licked the spoon.
"Take her away!" I whispered to Helen, rolling my head toward the aggressively efficient Miss Conover, who was tidying the room energetically.
"Ted, dear, you are getting well now. You must get used to strangers about you, especially when they have been so kind to you as Dr. Sinclair and Miss Conover," and Helen patted my shoulder.
Miss Conover joined in: "Didn't I tell you, Miss Helen, they was a whole lot easier to get on with delirious than convalescent? You was wishing for him to come out of it, but you ain't had my experience. I'd rather put a straight jacket on a nut than fetch a pipe and tobacco for a man the day before his hospital discharge."
Helen looked down at me with her eyes dancing, and the black murder that had been swelling up in me, during Miss Conover's disquisition on the care of men, subsided.
"I'll send her away, Ted," she said, kissing me. "I believe this time you are right."