When she awoke Druce was trying nervously to roll a cigarette. The paper broke.
“Here, you, it’s morning. It’s time you woke up. Take this money. Get me some cigarettes. I can’t roll them.”
He was a being frightening to see by this time. The morphine and the French poison had torn his nerves to fragments. His eyes glared like coals in his pasty white face.
Elsie did not try to talk to him. She saw that he was beyond that. She took some money from the table and went out again to buy the cigarettes and food. When she returned Druce refused to eat. He took up the bottle of absinthe and drank from it, swallowing the burning liquid with animal-like gulps that made Elsie shudder.
“You’ll kill yourself,” said Elsie. “Take some of this milk.”
“Mind your own damn business,” returned Druce, hoarsely. “You stick to milk. I’ll stick to absinthe.”
Again he lay down and again he slept. The long day passed. Night came and with a wild wind and a beating rain.
Druce woke in a half delirium.
“More absinthe, more absinthe,” he muttered. The bottle on the table was empty. “Why didn’t you have another bottle here? What have you been doing, eh?”
“Do you think you better take any more?” asked Elsie.