The doctor poured some spirit into a glass.

"Drink this," he said.

Theophil drank it raw, as though it had been water; and presently a certain illusive hope began to stir like an opening rose in his brain, and when the doctor had gone he turned to that decanter again.

Perhaps if he drank enough he would find that Jenny was not to die, after all.

At all events, the spirit gave him nerve, which else he could not have found, to go and sit by Jenny once more.