"But--Miss Doyle!"

"You've told us you are doomed. Well, you're going to die with a
full stomach."

"But the doctor--"

"Bother the doctor! I'm your doctor, now, and I won't send in a bill,
thank your stars."

He looked at her with his sad little smile.

"Isn't this a rather high-handed proceeding, Miss Doyle?"

"Perhaps."

"I haven't employed you as my physician, you know."

"True. But you've deliberately put yourself in my power."

"How?"

"In the first place, you tagged us here to this hotel."

"You don't mind, do you?"

"Not in the least. It's a public hostelry. In the second place, you
confided to us your disease and your treatment of it--which was really
none of our business."

"I--I was wrong to do that. But you led me on and--I'm so lonely--and you
all seemed so generous and sympathetic--that I--I--"

"That you unwittingly posted us concerning your real trouble. Do you
realize what it is? You're a hypo--hypo--what do they call
it?--hypochondriac!"

"I am not!"

"And your doctor--your famous specialist--is a fool."

"Oh, Miss Doyle!"

"Also you are a--a chump, to follow his fool advice. You don't need
sympathy, Mr. A. Jones. What you need is a slapstick."

"A--a--"

"A slapstick. And that's what you're going to get if you don't
obey orders."

Here the maid set down the breakfast, ranging the dishes invitingly
before the invalid. His face had expressed all the emotions from
amazement to terror during Patsy's tirade and now he gazed from her firm,
determined features to the eggs and toast, in an uncertain, helpless way
that caused the girl a severe effort to curb a burst of laughter.

"Now, then," she said, "get busy. I'll fix your egg. Do you want more
sugar in your chocolate? Taste it and see. And if you don't butter that
toast before it gets cold it won't be fit to eat."

He looked at her steadily now, again smiling.

"You're not joking, Miss Doyle?"

"I'm in dead earnest."

"Of course you realize this is the--the end?"

"Of your foolishness? I hope so. You used to eat like a sensible boy,
didn't you?"

"When I was well."

"You're well now. Your only need is sustaining, strengthening food. I
came near ordering you a beefsteak, but I'll reserve that for lunch."

He sipped the chocolate.

"Yes; it needs more sugar," he said quietly. "Will you please butter my
toast? It seems to me such a breakfast is worth months of suffering. How
delicious this egg is! It was the frag