He woke; he glared at her with bloodshot eyes; he threatened her with his clenched fist.
There was but one way of lifting his purblind stupidity to the light.
She appealed to his experience of himself, on many a former occasion: "You fool, you have been drinking again--and there's a patient waiting for you." To that dilemma he was accustomed; the statement of it partially roused him.

Mrs.Vimpany tore off the paper wrapping, and opened the medicine-bottle which she had brought with her.
He stared at it; he muttered to himself: "Is she going to poison me ?" She seized his head with one hand, and held the open bottle to his nose.

"Your own prescription," she cried, "for yourself and your hateful friends." His nose told him what words might have tried vainly to say: he swallowed the mixture.

"If I lose the patient," he muttered oracularly, "I lose the money." His resolute wife dragged him out of his chair.

The second door in the dining-room led into an empty bed-chamber.