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 were called for by Dr. Bentley's Ready Guide aforesaid. Gerald was too weak to refuse the dose that could be ministered. "For my sake, old fellow. It's the best I know how to do for you," Philip said, apologetically; and Gerald, half in stupor, opened his lips. Then, after he had given the younger boy the last teaspoonful prescribed, and had sat beside his pillow a long time with a heavy and more and more fear-shaken heart, he sat down beside the window.

He wrote Mr. Saxton and Mr. Marcy the dispatch and the letter that ought to be ready for any opportunity. When that might arrive, of course, he could not reckon. At any moment communication with the world might be opened to them; it might not be for hours yet, possibly for days. He had given up speculating what had called away their hosts so suddenly, ceased fancying the cause of their absolutely inexplicable delay to return to their home and to the care of house, live stock, and garden. No ordinary accident probably lay at the bottom of the riddle. Now he could think of nothing besides the fact that he and Gerald were here, shut up in this singular asylum together, waiting for its owners and a deliverance to "turn up,"