uccinctly.

"Just a poor wretch who--who wanted enough for--for more drink, I suppose,"
said Lutie, warily. Her heart was beating violently. She was immensely
relieved by the policeman's amiable grunt. It signified that the matter
was closed so far as he was concerned. He politely assisted her into the
taxi-cab and repeated her tremulous directions to the driver. As the
machine chortled off through the deserted street, she peered through the
little window at the back. Her apprehensions faded. The officer was
standing where she had left him.

Then came Thorpe and Simmy Dodge in the dead hour of night and she learned
that she had turned away from him when he was desperately ill. Sick and
tortured, he had come to her and she had denied him. She looked so
crushed, so pathetic that the two men undertook to convince her that she
had nothing to fear,--they would protect her from George!

She smiled wanly, shook her head, and confessed that she did not want to
be protected against him. She wanted to surrender. She wanted _him_ to
protect her. Suddenly she was transformed. She sprang to her feet and
faced them, and she was resolute. Her voice rang with determination, her
lips no longer drooped and trembled, and the appeal was gone from her
eyes.

"He must be found, Simmy," she said imperatively. "Find him and bring him
here to me. This is his home. I want him here."

The two men went out again, half an hour later, to scour the town for
George Tresslyn. They were forced to use every argument at their command
to convince her that it would be highly improper, in more ways than one,
to bring the sick man to her apartment. She submitted in the end, but they
were bound by a promise to take him to a hospital and not to the house of
either his mother or his sister.

"He belongs to me," she said simply. "You must do what I tell you to do.
They do not want him. I do. When you have found him, call me up, Simmy,
and I will come. I shall not go to bed. Thank you,--both of you,--for--for--"
She turned away as her voice broke. After a moment she faced them again.
"And you will take charge of him, Dr. Thorpe?" she said. "I shall hold you
to your promise. There is no one that I trust so much as I do you."

Thorpe was with the sick man when Simmy arrived at his apartment. George
was rolling and tossing and moaning in his delirium, and the doctor's face
was grave.

"Pneumonia," he said. "Bad, too,--devilish bad. He cannot be moved, Simmy."