Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/33

 She stuck out her tongue as if to lap it.

"No, no," he said. "Drink it. Open your mouth and drink it."

She laid her hand on his, pressed the cup away from her, and stared down at it. Then she sighed and drank a mouthful. It was a rank draught.

"It m-makes me sick," she faltered, nauseated, turning away from it.

"All right," he said. "I'll warm some milk."

She fell back on the pillow and closed her eyes again. But the coffee had evidently done something to revive her, for when he brought her the milk—with his last spoonful of whisky in it—she drank it greedily. He followed it with a hard-boiled egg, chopped fine, and a slice of scorched bread, flavored with kerosene, from the top of his oil-stove. He fed the egg to her in a spoon, encouraging her; and she ate the toast without his help. "Now," he said, "you'll have to take off some of these wet clothes. You can put on my overcoat."

It was his winter's coat, from a nail behind the door. She let him unbutton her dress down the back, get her arms and shoulders out of it, wrap her in the overcoat, and draw the dripping gown off over her feet. The thinness of her girlish arms, and the hollows in her neck and shoulders, were no more pathetic than the poverty of the Canton-flannel petticoat that she wore. He buttoned the coat on her; and she lay on her back, gazing at the sloping ceiling, in a weak stupor.