"Don't leave me alone with him," he said; "he frightens me. If I want a nurse, he says he knows a woman who will come, and I shall be more in his power than ever. Do you know, I have not signed the will. I would rather the old will stood—I think I have remembered every one in it—all the old servants, I mean. I made the sort of will when I first joined that my father and mother would have liked had they been alive. Keith, I am afraid of Strause. He is mad about this will. He is never alone with me that he does not talk of it. It has arrived, and I have only to sign it, and he will easily get witnesses. And he will make me do it. I feel he will if he is alone with me. When you are ill you get nervous in the middle of the night. Don't you understand, Keith?"
"Yes, I understand," replied Keith, in that sympathetic voice which was one of his greatest charms.
"O Keith," continued the boy, "I did not think I could be such an arrant coward!"
"You are ill, and are therefore not responsible," replied Keith. "Now listen, Aylmer. I mean to look after you to-night. I am off duty, and if I cannot get Strause out of the room I will stay here too; so you need not worry about that will, for you cannot sign it while I am here to prevent you."
"No, that's right. What a relief it will be! God bless you, old chap!"
"Cheer up then, now, and go to sleep."
"You don't know how bad I feel, and what awful attacks of pain I get. I have to be more or less under an opiate all the time. What is the hour? Oh, I ought to have my medicine—not the opiate, but the other. You will find two bottles on that table, Keith. Do you mind giving me a dose of the one which is marked 'To be taken every two hours'?"
Keith crossed the room to a little table where some bottles were neatly arranged. One was a little larger than the other. On one were the simple directions that the medicine within was to be taken, two tablespoonfuls at a time, every two hours. The other medicine was to be taken only at the rate of a teaspoonful when the pain was very bad.
"I wish I might have a dose of the other medicine too," said Aylmer, in his weak voice; "it dulls the pain and makes me drowsy. I hate this stuff."
"The pain is not intolerable now, is it?" asked Keith.