There is no need to worry." "Don't send me in there alone, Gabriella," begged Charley piteously.
"I'd rather face bullets than Jane in an attack." His bravado had deserted him, and he appeared positively craven.

The stiffness seemed to have gone not only out of his character, but out of his clothes also.
Even his collar had become limp with emotion.
"Well, I don't care," answered Gabriella, "you've got to stand it.
There's no use squirming when you've only yourself to blame." With a malicious pleasure, she watched the consternation in Charley's face, while the doctor's footsteps came rapidly down the hall and stopped at the threshold of the parlour.
"You may go in, Mr.Gracey--your wife is asking for you; but be very careful not to say anything that might disturb her.

Just keep her as quiet as you can for a few hours." Then the door in the distance opened again, and Mrs.Carr, in the hollow tones of destiny, called: "Gabriella, Jane is waiting to speak to her husband." "Come, Charley," ordered Gabriella, grimly, and a moment later she pushed him across her mother's threshold and turned back into the hall.
"I hope she'll make him squirm," she said to herself, with relish.
Nothing, she felt, except the certainty of Charley's squirming, could make up to her for the half-hour she had just spent with him.
She was still standing there when Jane's medicine came from the druggist at the corner, and for a while she waited outside the door, fearing to lighten Charley's punishment by her entrance.

The medicine had to be measured in drops, and she went into the dining-room, where the children were huddled together in an improvised bed, and diluted the mixture with water before she could persuade herself to go into her mother's room.
Even then she hesitated until she remembered that the doctor had said Jane must take the first dose immediately.

Not by her, if she could help it, should the divine wrath of the furies be appeased.
But with the first touch of her hand on the knob, Charley's flippant voice greeted her with, "Won't you come in, Gabriella ?" and swallowing her angry retort, she entered stiffly, with the glass held out straight before her.