The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be conscious of his surroundings.

And there followed a long period which to him was well-nigh a blank.

For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread of his life asunder.

Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body, and there were times of terrible collapse,--when he was conscious of nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of existence.

In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours away, hardly aware of his own identity.