said. "Within
the past few days we have noted its more virulent tendency. All we can
do now is to keep you from suffering until--the end."

"And that will be--when?" she demanded.

"I think I can safely give you a week but----"

"Then I must act at once," she said, as he hesitated. "I must, first of
all, make provision for Alora's future, and in this I require your
help."

"You know you may depend upon me," he said simply.

"Please telegraph at once to my husband Jason Jones, in New York."

The request startled him, for never before had she mentioned her
husband's name in his presence. But he asked, calmly enough:

"What is his address?"

"Hand me that small memorandum-book," pointing to the stand beside him.
He obeyed, and as she turned the leaves slowly she said:

"Doctor Anstruther, you have been my good and faithful friend, and you
ought to know and to understand why I am now sending for my husband,
from whom I have been estranged for many years. When I first met Jason
Jones he was a true artist and I fell in love with his art rather than
with the man. I was ambitious that he should become a great painter,
world-famous. He was very poor until he married me, and he had worked
industriously to succeed, but as soon as I introduced him to a life of
comfort--I might even add, of luxury--his ambition to work gradually
deserted him. With his future provided for, as he thought, he failed to
understand the necessity of devoting himself to his brush and palette,
but preferred a life of ease--of laziness, if you will. So we
quarreled. I tried to force him back to his work, but it was no use; my
money had ruined his career. I therefore lost patience and decided to
abandon him, hoping that when he was again thrown upon his own
resources he would earnestly resume his profession and become a master,
as I believed him competent to be. We were not divorced: we merely
separated. Finding I had withdrawn his allowance he was glad to see me
go, for my unmerciful scoldings had killed any love he may have had for
me. But he loved Lory, and her loss was his hardest trial. I may have
been as much to blame as he for our lack of harmony, but I have always
acted on my impulses.

"I'll give Jason Jones the credit for not whimpering," she resumed
thoughtfully, after a brief pause, "nor has he ever since appealed to
me for money. I don't know how well he has succeeded, for we do not
correspond, but I have never heard his name mention