.
bed.
"Women are the devil," he told the Alsatian. "Never get married, my lad."
In an evil temper, Simone flounced down the stairs. On the landing, she met Mrs. Oates who was showing Nurse Barker to her patient's' room. At the sight of the ferocious-looking woman, her expression slightly cleared, for her jealousy was so inflamed that she would have resented an attractive nurse.
"Young Mrs. Warren," whispered Mrs. Oates, as she knocked at the door of the blue room.'
Nurse Barker grunted, for she recognised the type. "Nymphomaniac," she said.
"Oh, no, she's quite sane," declared Mrs. Oates. "Just flighty."
Miss Warren opened the door—a film of welcome in her pale eyes.
"I'm glad you've come, nurse," she said.
"Yes, I expect you're glad to pass on the job to me," observed Nurse Barker. "Can I see the patient?"
She stalked after Miss Warren, into the blue room, and stood beside the bed, where Lady Warren lay in a shrunken heap, with closed clay-coloured lids. "I do hope she'll take a fancy to you," hinted Miss Warren nervously.
"Oh, we'll soon be friends," said Nurse Barker confidently. "I've a way with old people. They want kindness with firmness. They're just like children, at the other end,"
Lady Warren suddenly opened an eye which was not in the least child-like, unless it was that of an infant shot out of an eternity of sin.'"
"Is that the new nurse?" she asked.
"Yes, Mother," replied Miss Warren.
"Send her away." Miss Warren looked helplessly at the nurse.
"Oh dear," she murmured, 'I'm afraid she's taken another dislike."
"That's nothing," said Nurse Barker. "She's being a bit naughty, that's all. I'll soon win her over."
"Send her away," repeated Lady Warren. "I want the girl back."
Nurse Barker saw her chance of redeeming her unpopularity.
"You shall have her, tonight," she promised.
Then she drew Miss Warren aside.
"Is there any brandy in the room?" she asked. "I'm medically ordered to take a little stimulant."
Miss Warren looked disturbed.
"I thought you understood this is a teetotal house," she explained. "As you know, you are paid a higher salary."
"But it's not safe to have no brandy in a sick room," insisted Nurse Barker.
"My mother depends on oxygen," explained Miss Warren. "It is her life...Still...Perhaps...I'll speak to the Professor."
Driven before the towering form of Nurse Barker, she drifted across the landing, like a withered leaf in the eddy of an east wind.
The professor appeared at his bedroom door, in answer to his sister's tap. He greeted the nurse with stony courtesy, and listened to her request.
"Certainly you may have brandy, if you require it," he said. "I will go down, at once, to the cellar, and send a bottle up to your room."
Helen, who was helping in the kitchen, glanced curiously at Mrs. Oates, when the Professor asked her for a candle.
"I shall want you to hold it," he said. "I'm going to the wine-cellar."
Although the request amounted to mental cruelty, Mrs. Oates hastened to obey. The electric pendant lit the passage only as far as the bend; around the corner it was quite dark. She walked ahead of the Professor, to guide him, and when she reached the door of the cellar, stood, holding her candle aloft, like a pilgrim who had reached his Mecca.
The key turned in the lock, and Mrs. Oates and the Professor entered the sacred place. Fat lumps of greed swam in the woman's eyes as her master selected a bottle from a bin.
As she gazed at it thirstily, the Professor glanced at the thermometer which hung on the wall.
"That temperature cannot be right," he said, thrusting the bottle into her hands. "Hold this while I carry it to a better light."
In a short time he returned from the passage, and relocked the cellar door. This time, he led the way back to the kitchen, while Mrs. Oates walked respectfully in his rear. As she passed through the scullery, she ducked down for a second, beside the sink.
The Professor placed the bottle of brandy on the kitchen table and spoke to Helen.
"Please take this up to the blue room, immediately, after Mrs. Oates has drawn the cork."
When they were alone Helen sympathised with Mrs. Oates.
"It's a shame. Why don't you keep back just a table spoonful, to drink Lady Warren's health?"
"I wouldn't dare," Mrs. Oates told her. "That nurse would know, and split on me. Besides, it would be sin to water down such lovely stuff."
Helen admired the fortitude with which the woman thrust the bottle into her hands.
"Run off with it, quick", she said, "but be sure not drop it."
Directly she was alone, the secret of her courage was revealed. Lumbering into the scullery, she groped for something she had hidden under the sink.
Opportunity had knocked at her door, and she had been swift in her response. When she returned to the kitchen, she smiled triumphantly at her spoil, before she hid it away among the empties in her cupboard.
It was a second bottle of brandy.
CHAPTER IX. THE OLD WOMAN REMEMBERS
When Helen carried the brandy up to the blue room, Nurse Barker opened the door, in answer to her tap. In her white overall—her dark-red face framed in its handkerchief headgear—she looked like a gigantic block of futuristic sculpture.
"Thank you," she said. "This will help me to get some sleep. I must have one good night, if I have to carry on this case, single-handed."
There was a sinister glint in her deep-set eyes as she added:
"I have arranged for you to sleep here, tonight. Miss Warren was present, so she understands the agreement, and the old girl—Lady Warren—" she hastened to correct her slip—"raised no objection." Helen thought it was wiser to let any protest come from an official quarter.
"Yes, Nurse," she said. "But I must hurry to dress."
"Oh, you dress for dinner, do you?"
The woman's tone was so strained—her glance so spiked—that Helen was glad to get away.
"She's jealous," she thought. "And Miss Warren's a coward. They're both weak links. I wonder what my special failing is."
Like the majority of the human race, she was blind to her own faults, and would have protested vehemently against the charge of curiosity, although Mrs. Oates already knew the origin of several trivial mishaps.
When she entered her bedroom, she recoiled with a violent start, at the sight of a black shape, which appeared to be swinging into her window.
Snapping on the light, she saw that she had been misled by the branches of a tall cedar, which was being lashed by the gale. Although it seemed so near, the tree was too far away for any athlete to leap from it into her room; but every gust swept the boughs towards the opening in an unpleasantly suggestive manner.
"That tree looks as if it was trying to force its way in," thought Helen. "I'll have to shut that window."
When she fastened the casement, she noticed how the rain streamed down the glass, like a water-spout. The garden lay below, in sodden blackness amid the tormented landscape, over which the elements swept mightily.