"Hendon," she cried, "do you know what this means?"

There was utter silence, and Hendon Chartley turned his face away.

"I say, do you know what this means? Hendon, speak?"

"Yes."

It was slowly and unwillingly said.

"And you have encouraged this man to make advances to the woman your best friend—almost your brother—loved?"

"Oh, Rich!"

"Speak."

"No, no! I never encouraged him. I fought against it, and it has made me half mad when the great vulgar boor has sat talking about you, and drinking your health and praising you. Rich, I tell you I've felt sometimes as if I could smash the champagne bottle over his thick skull for even daring to think about you."

"And yet you have let him do all this!" cried Richmond, with her eyes flashing. "Hendon—brother, for the sake of this man's money and the comforts it would bring, do you wish to see me his wife?"

"Damn it, no! I'd sooner see you dead!" cried the young man passionately. "Say the word, old girl, and I'll fight for you as a brother should. I'll half-starve myself but what I'll get on, and pay that thick-skinned City elephant every penny I've had."

"And some day Janet shall put her arms round your neck, and tell you that you are the best and truest boy that ever lived."

"Ah! some day," said Hendon sadly.

"Yes, some day," cried Rich, clasping him in her arms. "Hendon dear, you've made me strong where I felt very, very weak, and now we can join hands and fight the enemy to the very last."

"When old Mark shall come back."

"Hush!"

"No, I'll not hush! When dear old Mark shall come back, and all these troubles be like a dream."

Richmond looked up with a sad smile in her brother's face, and kissed him once again.

"And Janet—" he said hoarsely, after he had returned her caress.

"Is acting as a true woman should. Take her as a pattern, dear, and show some self-denial."

"Why not take you, Rich?" he said kindly as he gazed in the sweet careworn face before him. "There, I won't ask you to have the money. I'm off; if I stop here longer I shall be acting like a girl. As for Poynter, if he comes and pesters you—"

"Mr Poynter will not come," said Richmond, drawing herself up proudly. "He has acted like a coward to us both."

"One moment, Rich," said Hendon eagerly: "do you think—the governor—"

"Has taken money from him? No."

"Thank God!"

"My father, whatever his weakness, is a true gentleman at heart. He would not do this thing."

Hendon advanced a step to take his sister in his arms, but in his eyes then she wore so much the aspect of an indignant queen that he raised her thin white hand to his lips instead, and hurried from the house.



CHAPTER SIX.

THE SURGERY IMP.

Dr Chartley sat in his consulting-room, with a glass jar, retort, receiver, and spirit-lamp before him. The lamp was on the table, and made with its shaded light and that of the fire a pleasant glow, which took off some of the desolation of the bare consulting-room on that bitter night.

He had been busy over his discovery, and confessed that it was not so far advanced as he could wish.

"There is a something wanting," he had muttered more than once; and, wearied at last, he was thinking more seriously than usual of his son, of Richmond, and of James Poynter.

"It would place her above the reach of want," he said dreamily; "she would be happy if anything befell me. Yes, money is a power, and we are now so poor, so poor, that life seems to have become one bitter struggle, in which I am too weak to engage."

He sighed, and rose, walked into the miserably cold surgery, where Bob was diligently polishing the front out of the nest of drawers containing drugs, and having threads of cotton from the ragged duster hanging upon the broken knobs.

"Good boy—good industrious boy," said the doctor, patting his head gently, before taking up a little graduated glass, pouring in a small quantity from a bottle at the top of the shelves, and after turning it into a medicine glass, he filled up with water and drank it.

Bob took the glass the doctor handed to him, smiling.

"Good for a weary troubled old man, boy," he said, "but it will kill you. Don't touch—don't touch—don't touch."

He nodded and went back into the consulting-room, to compose himself upon the couch for his evening sleep, which he took according to custom, and from which he awoke refreshed and ready to work for hours, late into the night, at his wearisome chimerical task, with which he grew more infatuated the more his reason suggested that his work was vain.

The boy began to whistle very softly as the doctor disappeared. Then he washed and wiped the glass, and put it back in its place ready for use. After this he threw himself upon the settee, took hold of his right leg with his left hand, by the ankle, dragged it up, and held it across his body rigidly as if it were a banjo, and began to strum imaginary strings with his right hand, while in a whisper he sang a song about a yaller gal somewhere in the south, with close-shut eyes and a long wide mouth, and so on, through seven verses, with a chorus to each, all of which seemed to afford him the greatest gratification, and which he supplemented by leaping up and going round the surgery, holding out the imaginary instrument for contributions.

These were acknowledged with proper darky grimaces and grins, and seemed to be so abundant that Bob returned to the settee, and this time played the bones with a couple of pair saved from a brisket of beef, but without making a sound.

Another collection and another silent solo, this time on the tambourine, which the boy pretended to beat with frantic energy, ending by going on tiptoe to peep through the keyhole, and satisfy himself that the doctor was in a deep sleep.

There was no doubt about that, so the boy's hour or two of indulgence, on which he regularly counted, began.

He dashed at the settee, threw it open, stooped down to take something out, but rose again, closed the lid, and listened as if afraid of being caught.

Then shaking his head, he ran to the door, which opened into the lobby and then into the street, from which place he came, helping himself along by the wall to the settee, upon which he sank, and after lying down and laying his leg out carefully, he began to play double parts, that of surgeon and patient. For, after feeling the leg and shaking his head, he said to himself, "Ah, we'll soon put that right, my man."

Jumping up, he ran to a drawer, from, which he brought splints and bandages, trotted back to the settee, and with ghastly minuteness—the result of having been present at an accident, and studious readings of Dr Chartley's books—he proceeded to set a serious compound fracture, assuring himself that he bore it like a man, and that he need not be under the least apprehension, for in such a healthy subject the joint would knit together before long, and he would be as strong as ever.

All this was in company with the business he was carrying on of applying the splints and bandaging the broken leg; after which, by aid of the doctor's walking-sticks, he limped to the door, as there was no one to carry him, thanked himself for his kindness, and in imagination departed, leaving himself in the character of the doctor, whose walk he imitated as he drew out a large pill-box, opened it, and took a small pinch of magnesia as if it were snuff.

Another peep at the doctor through the keyhole, and a run to the door, to make sure of there being no interruption there, and then the boy's face assumed a very serious expression. He took the cloth from the little table in the corner, rolled up the hearthrug longwise, and tied it in two places with string, and then treating it as a patient, he laid it on the settee, and drew over it the table-cover.

He was not satisfied, though, and getting a square of paper, such as would be used to wrap up a bottle of medicine, he poked his finger through twice for eyes, made a slit for a mouth, and puckered the paper for a nose.

This rough mask he tied at the end of the long roll, drew the table-cover up to the face, and then came to see the patient, carried on an imaginary conversation with a colleague, and ended by going to a cupboard and getting out a long mahogany case.

Bob's reading for the past two years had not been the wholesome and unwholesome literature provided for our youth, but the contents of the doctor's little library, the Lancet, and the Medical Times. These proceedings were the offspring.

To carry out the next proceedings, Bob took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves; informed his colleague that it was a bad case—a diseased heart—and the only hope for the patient's life was to take it out completely.

This Bob proceeded to do with goblin-like delight. He turned the table-cover half down before opening the mahogany case, which contained a set of long amputating knives; and these he tried one after the other, to satisfy himself about the edge before commencing the operation, with great gusto, cutting the string that bound the hearthrug, making an incision, and extracting the heart. Next the place was sewn up, the cover replaced, the knives put away with horrible realism, the patient's pulse felt and a little stimulus administered—the boy taking this himself—to wit, a little ammonia and water.

Next the table-cover was drawn off, the hearthrug restored to its place; and, grinning now hugely, Bob went to a drawer, and got out the doctor's tooth-drawing instruments—for the doctor belonged to the old school, and in distant times had not been above removing a decayed and aching molar from a patient's jaw.

The boy flourished the instruments about with evident enjoyment, going as far as to take a good hold of one of his teeth, but he refrained from pulling, and rubbed his half-numbed hands.

It suddenly seemed to occur to him that he had not put on his jacket, and resuming this, and proving its many buttons to be a sham, for it fastened in a feminine manner by means of a series of hooks and eyes, he made a bound to the settee, grinning with pleasure as he threw it open, dived down, and brought out a glistening white human skull, handling it with a weird kind of delight painted in his face.

He took the ghastly object, and fixed it upon a knob, one of those upon the back of the old-fashioned chair in the middle of the room, draped it round with the table-cover; and drew back to admire his handiwork.

"Oh, if our 'Lisbeth would come in now!" he said, with a chuckle, as he rubbed his hands down his sides before proceeding to the greatest bit of enjoyment he had in his lonely life at the doctor's.

From the very first the doctor's surgery and consulting-room had had a strange fascination for him, and whenever he was missing, the maid-of-all-work, who rarely showed her face out of the dim kitchen, knew that the boy would not be playing truant from his work or playing with other lads of his age, but would be found reading, dusting, or amusing himself in the surgery, smelling bottles, opening drawers, or standing on a chair, gazing at the ghastly preparations in one or other of the row of glass jars.

His pranks he managed to keep secret, arranging to enjoy them when the doctor was asleep, and he was not likely to be disturbed.

The present was his favourite feat from its reality. There was something to go at, he always said, and for the hundredth time, perhaps, after performing the operation, and restoring with the help of a little gum, he took up the doctor's tooth-key, fixed it carefully round a perfectly sound molar in the fine specimen upon whose excellences the doctor had before now lectured to students, and steadying the skull, the boy pretended to engage in a terrible struggle; then gave a quick twitch, and brought out the tooth, which he held with a smile as he struck an attitude before its silent owner.

The boy had seemed goblin-like before, but as he now stood there before the glistening relic of mortality, over which he had partly thrown the corner of the table-cloth, the scene was weird and grim in the extreme; for the one uncovered eye-socket seemed to leer at him in company with a ghastly pride, as if rejoicing at the relief the operation had afforded.

"Now yer better, ain't yer?" said Bob. "Eh? Ah, I thought you would be. He was a tight 'un. Some 'un coming."

Quick as thought, the boy snatched the skull from the back of the chair, slipped it into the long chest, closed the lid, thrust the tooth-key back into the drawer, and had thrown the cover on the table before the door at the end of the house-passage was opened, disclosing him, in spite of all his efforts, looking as if the mischief which lurked in the corners of his mouth, and flashed from his eyes, had been running to the full extent of its chain.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

AGONY POINT.

"Is that all? What a fuss over a little pain!" What many would say to a suffering friend when sound and well themselves. What Richmond Chartley was ready to say to herself as she paced the room, with one hand pressed to her face, where the agonising pain seemed to start as a centre, and then ramify in jerks through every nerve.

Toothache, face-ache, neuralgia, according to fashion, but maddening all the same. A pain born of care and anxiety, close confinement, abstinence, the damp unchanging foggy air, and settled in the face of a heroine, to take, as it were, all the romance of her history.

But there it was all the same, fiercely stabbing, jerking, as if some virulent little demon were holding ends of the facial nerves in a pair of pincers, and waiting till the sufferer was a little calm for a few moments before giving the nerve a savage jig.

After the tug a pause of sickening agony, and then that slow, red-hot suffering again, as if a blunt augur was being made to form a channel beneath the teeth, so that the aching pains, as of hot lead, might run round without let or hindrance.

Neuralgia, with sleepless nights; neuralgia, with Hendon Chartley's progress at the hospital; neuralgia, with the trouble about Janet; neuralgia, with James Poynter's coarse vulgar face full of effrontery always before her, flaunting his possessions, his power, and his influence, and staring with parted lips over the words which somehow he had never yet dared to utter, but which sooner or later she knew must come.

Neuralgia, with the constant dread that some day her father would indulge too deeply in the opiate she knew he took every evening; neuralgia, with the constant carking care of the unpaid tradespeople: and, above all, that wearisome agony, mingled with the chilling heartache and those memories of the man from whom she had parted when in his ardent desire he had told her that it was for her sake he was going to leave England, to come back some day a rich man, and ask her to be his wife.

"Dead, dead, dead!" moaned Rich, as she paced the room; "and if I, too, could only be sleeping, for it is more than I can bear!"

But as the words left her lips, she threw her head back, and pressed her long hair from her face.

"What a coward I am!" she cried, "with others looking to me for help, and shrinking from bearing a little pain!"

She hurried to the door, telling herself that there was relief in the surgery for all she suffered; but as she went along the dark passage to the door she felt that there was one only anodyne for the greater pain she bore.

As she slowly approached there was a quick scuffing noise, a dull rattle as of something falling, and the loud closing of a heavy lid; then, as she opened the door, she found Bob turning to meet her with an innocent smile upon his face, while he was uttering a low humming noise, as if he were practising the art of imitating a musical bee.

"What have you been doing, Bob?" said Rich hastily.

"Me, Miss? Doing?" said the boy wonderingly. "I ain't a-been doing nothing. 'Tain't likely, 'mong all these here dangerous thinks;" and Bob waved his hand round the surgery, as if indicating the bottles and specimen jars.

"Because you have been warned frequently, sir, not to meddle."

"Course I have, Miss, and I wouldn't do no harm."

"Is my father asleep?"

"Jist like a top, Miss. He took his drops, and he's lying on the sofy, sleeping beautiful. You can hear him breathe if you come and put your ear to the keyhole."

"No, no," said Rich hastily; but, all the same, she walked quickly to the consulting-room door, and opened it softly, to look in and see across the table, with its chemical apparatus, the light of the shaded lamp thrown upon the calm, placid, handsome face, as the doctor lay back on the couch, taking his drug-bought rest according to his nightly custom.

Rich sighed and walked right in, the door closing behind her as she crossed the room, and stood gazing down, her head bent, and handy clasped, while for the moment she forgot her nerve-pains, and the tears started to her eyes.

"Poor father!" she sighed; "always so kind and gentle in spite of all. How do I know what he may suffer beneath the mask he wears?"

She thought of the prosperity they had once enjoyed, the many patients who came, and how, in this very room, as a child, he used to play with her long curling hair, while she, with childlike delight, emptied the little wooden bowl, and counted how many guineas papa had received that morning.

She recalled, too, the carriage in which she had sat waiting, while he, the handsome young doctor, had made his calls upon rich patients; and then, like a cloud, came creeping up the memories of the gradual decline of his practice, as he had devoted himself more and more to the dream of his life—this discovery of a vital fluid which should repair the waste of all disease, and with the indulgence in his chimera came the poverty and despair.

"Poor father!" she sighed again, bending down and kissing the broad white forehead; "there has never been anything between us but love."

She rose slowly, went to a corner where a faded old dressing-gown hung upon a chair, and this she softly laid over the sleeping man, gazed at the fire, which was burning brightly, and then stole away with the agonising pang, forgotten for the moment, sweeping back, and seeming to drive her mad.

"I see yer a-kissing of him, Miss," said Bob, grinning, as she closed the door.

Rich turned upon him angrily; but the boy was looking dreamily towards the doctor, and rubbing his shock head of hair.

"Don't he look niste when he's asleep like that? There ain't such a good-looking gent nowhere's about here as our master."

There was so much genuine admiration in the boy's tones that the angry look gave place to one of half amusement, half pity.

"I've often wondered whether if ever I'd had a father, he'd ha' been like the doctor, Miss. Ain't yer proud on him?"

"Yes, Bob, yes," she cried, laying her hand upon the boy's shoulder, while a strange sensation of depression, as of impending trouble, came over her, making her forget everything, and hardly notice the next act of the boy.

It is hardly fair to say that Bob's hands were dirty, but they were very coarse in grain, and discoloured, the nails were worn down, and the fingers were blue with chilblains where they were not red with the chaps which roughened them; and those were the hands which took hold of Rich's and held it for a few moments against the boy's cheek; while he rubbed the said cheek softly against the smooth palm, his bright eyes looking up at her as a spaniel might at its mistress. In fact, there was something dog-like and fawning in the ways of the lad, till the hand was drawn away.

"So'm I proud on him, Miss. He is a good 'un. For it's like 'evin being here. Why, I've been here two years now, and he never kicked me once."

"And used you to be kicked before you came here, Bob?" said Rich, feeling amused, in spite of herself, at the boy's estimate of true happiness.

"Kicked, Miss? Ha, ha, ha! Why, it was 'most all kicks when it warn't pots. Old woman never kicked me; but when she'd had a drop, and couldn't get no more, she was allus cross, and then she'd hit you with what come first—pewter pot, poker, anything, if you didn't get out of the way."

Rich's brow contracted, and then for the moment the pain neutralised that of the mind.

"But she didn't often hit me," said Bob, grinning. "I used to get too sharp for her; and she didn't mean no harm. Want me to do anything, Miss?"

"No, Bob, no," said Rich, turning away to the shelves, where the bottles stood as in a chemist's shop. "Poor boy! and the place is to him like heaven!" she thought.

"Want some physic, Miss?" said the boy excitedly; "which on 'em? I knows 'most all on 'em now."

"I want the belladonna," said Rich, with her face contracted once more.

"Why, that's one o' they little bottles up a-top where they're all pisons! Whatcher want that for?" said Bob suspiciously. Then, as he read her countenance. "Whatcher got—toothache?"

Rich nodded.

"Here, hold hard! you can't reach it, Miss. Let me get on a chair. Oh, I say! Let me pull it out."

The boy's eager sympathy and desire to afford relief, grotesque as it was, seemed so genuine, so grateful to the lonely girl, that she smiled at her poor coarse companion's troubled face.

"No, no, Bob," she said gently.

"Wish I could have it instead," he cried. "I do, s'elp me!"

"It will be better soon, Bob," she said, as the boy climbed up and obtained the little stoppered bottle from the top shelf.

"That's good stuff for it, Miss," said the boy. "Bottle's quite clean. I dusted all on 'em yesterday. Here, I know! let me put some on."

"You, Bob?" said Rich.

"Yes, Miss; I know. I've seen the doctor do it twiced to gals as come and wanted him to pull out their teeth, and he wouldn't. I'll show yer."

Bob ran to a drawer and took out a camel-hair pencil, and operated with it dry upon his own face.

"I'll show yer," he cried. "You begins just in front o' the ear and makes a round spot, and then yer goes on right down the cheek and along yer chin, just as if you was trying to paint whiskers. Let me do it, Miss."

Rich hesitated for a moment, and then sat down and held her face on one side, while the boy carefully painted the place with the tincture, frowning the while and balancing himself upon the tips of his toes.

"Stop a moment, Miss," cried Bob. "Then he dropped two drops out o' this here blue bottle on a bit o' glass, and finished off with it just as you does with gum when you paint a picture."

Rich watched the boy anxiously as he took down a bottle labelled "Chloroform," but smiled and submitted patiently as the painting operation was completed.

"Feel better, Miss?" said the boy.

"Not yet, Bob; but I daresay this will do it good. Now put back those bottles, and don't meddle with them, mind."

"As if I didn't know, Miss! Why, I'm up to all the doctor's dodges now. There ain't a bottle on any o' them shelves I ain't smelled; and look at them things in sperrits," he continued, pointing to the various preparations standing upon one shelf, the relics of the doctor's lecturing days. "I knows 'em all by heart. I had to fill 'em with fresh sperrit once."

Rich turned and smiled at the boy as she reached the door; and then once more the young student was left alone, to go and peep through the keyhole to see if the doctor was fast asleep, and this being so, he ran to the door by the street, turned suddenly with his head on one side, raised his hands with the helpless, appealing gesture of the sick, and walked feebly to the cushioned chest, upon which he sank, with a low moan.

It was a clever piece of acting, studied from nature, and sinking back, he lay for a moment or two sufficiently long for the supposed patient to compose himself, before he assumed another part.

Leaping up, he went on tiptoe to the consulting-room again, peeped to see that all was right, and then, drawing himself up exactly as he had seen the doctor act scores of times, he slowly approached the settee, his face full of smiling interest, and sitting down in a chair beside the imaginary patient, he went through a magnificent piece of pantomime—so good that it was a pity there was no audience present to admire. For Bob had taken the doctor's glasses from the chimney-piece, put them on, and bent over the patient.

"Put out your tongue," he said. "Hum—ha! yes! a little foul."

Then he felt an imaginary pulse, his head on one side, and an imaginary watch in his hand.

"That will do," he said, returning the imaginary watch to its airy fob. "Now sit up."

Bob's ear was applied for a few moments to the phantom patient's chest.

"Breathe hard. That's it. Now more fully. Yes. Now a very long breath."

So real was the proceeding that a spectator would have filled up the void in his mind as Bob changed his position, holding his head now at the patient's back.

"Hah!" he ejaculated, as he rose. "A little congestion! Stop a moment."

He fetched a stethoscope from the chimney-piece, but instead of using it at once, proceeded to lay his hand here and there upon his imaginary patient's breast, and tap the back over and over again.

"Hah!" he ejaculated once more, as he applied his stethoscope now after a most accurate pantomimic unbuttoning of vest and opening of a shirt-front. "Yes, a little congestion!" he said again; and going back to the chimney-piece, he set the stethoscope on end as if it were a little fancy candlestick, took up a morocco case, and unhooking it, extracted therefrom a tiny thermometer, whose bulb he placed beneath his patient's arm-pit, and he was just about to see to what height the sufferer's temperature had risen, when there were steps again, and the boy had hardly time to hide the little tester, when the door opened, and, with a wild, dilated look in her eyes, Rich appeared again.

"Get me a small bottle," she said hastily.

"'Ain't it no better, Miss?"

"Don't talk to me!" cried Rich; "the pain is maddening. Is my father still asleep?"

"Yes, Miss; shall I wake him?"

"No, no. The bottle—the bottle!"

The boy hastily took a clean bottle from a drawer, and fitted it with a new cork from another, by which time, with the knowledge of one who had before now made up prescriptions for her father, Rich took down the chloral hydrate, and a graduated glass, pouring out a goodly quantity ready to transfer to the bottle the boy handed her, while he still retained the cork.

This done, Rich returned the chloral hydrate to the shelf, and took down another bottle labelled quin. sulph. sol. From this she poured out a certain quantity, and by the time the glass had shed its last drop, Bob was ready to hand another and larger bottle, which he had taken down with eager haste, as if fearing she would be first.

Rich glanced at it, saw that it was labelled aq. dest., and filled up the medicine-bottle, the boy handing the cork, and then gazing sympathetically in the pain-drawn face before him.

"Hadn't you better let me take it out, Miss?" he said, but there was no smile in answer—no reply, Rich hurrying away, while the boy listened to her footsteps.

"Ain't she got it!" he muttered, and he stood listening still, for he heard voices at the end of the passage.

"'Lisbeth," he said, and there was a knock.

The boy opened the passage door softly, and a voice said.

"I've cut you some bread and cheese; it's on the kitchen table."

"Goin' to bed, 'Lisbeth?"

There was a grunt, and the sound of departing steps, while the boy stood gazing along the passage.

"So are you?" he exclaimed, closing the door, "Ain't she got a temper! I can't help my old woman coming. 'Tain't my fault. I shouldn't turn sulky if it was hern."

Bob did not go down for a moment, but stood thinking. Then he ran out softly, and down-stairs into the dark kitchen to fetch his supper, which he preferred to eat with the fragrant odours of drugs about him, and seated upon the chest which contained the grisly relics of mortality, and against whose receptacle the boy's heels softly drummed.

The stale bread and hard Dutch cheese rapidly disappeared, the boy looking very stolid during the process of deglutition. Then his face lit up, and for a space he went through his pantomime again, seeing patients, pocketing their fees, dressing wounds, setting limbs, and, above all, prescribing a medicine which he compounded carefully, and, to give realism to the proceedings, himself took.

It was not an objectionable medicine, being composed of small portions of tartaric acid and soda, dropped into a wineglass which contained so much water, into which had been dropped a little syrup of ginger, afterwards flavoured with orange or lemon.

Tiring of this at last, Bob turned to the settee, whose lid he had opened, and he had lifted out certain anatomical specimens for his farther delectation, when there was a sharp ring at the surgery bell, and an unmistakable sound in the consulting-room—a combination which made the boy leap up, and, quick as lightning, turn out the gas, which projected on its bracket just over the settee.

This done, there was a rapid click or two of bones being replaced, the sound of the closing lid in the darkness, and by the time the consulting-room door as thrown open, and a warm glow of light shone across the surgery, Bob had effected his retreat.

"Lights out?" said the doctor going back from the door, to return directly with a burning spill, when the gas once more illumined the gloomy surgery, and to this the doctor added the ruddy glow of the street lamp, as he opened the door of the little fog-filled lobby, which intervened between him and the street.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE DOCTOR'S GUEST.

As Dr Chartley's hand was placed upon the latch the bell-handle creaked, and the wire was sawn to and fro, while the moment the door was opened a man in a soft slouch hat and pea-jacket, with an ulster thrown over his arm, laid his hand upon the doctor's breast, thrusting him back, passing in quickly, and hastily closing and fastening the door.

The doctor stood back more in surprise than alarm, as his visitor seemed to come in with a cloud of yellowish fog, which made him look indistinct and strange, an aspect heightened by his thick beard and moustache being covered with dew-like drops—the condensation of the heavy steaming breath that came from his nostrils as he panted hard, as one pants after a long run.

"May I ask—is any one ill?" exclaimed the doctor, to whom the sudden call at any hour of an excited messenger was little matter of surprise.

"In, quick!" said the visitor hoarsely; and pressing the doctor back once more, he stood listening for a few moments as if for pursuers, and then, wild-eyed and strange, he followed Dr Chartley into the surgery, closing the door and leaning back against it breathing heavily, his eyes staring wildly round, his sun-browned face twisting, while a nervous disposition to start and run seemed to pervade him in every gesture.

The fog and smoke which came in with him added to the strangeness of his aspect as he stood there; his hair rather long, unkempt, and wet with fog; his hands gloveless, and high boots spattered with mud and soaked with half-molten snow. There was more of the brigand in his aspect than of the honest man, and yet his drawn, agitated face was well featured and not unpleasing, besides which his wandering eyes suggested fear suffered, and not a likelihood of inspiring fear; unless it should be, as the doctor surmised, that he was mad, and the pursuit he evidently feared were that of his keepers.

It formed a strange picture—the bland, smooth shining-pated doctor facing this wild excited man standing with his back to the door, his hands outspread as if to keep it fast, and his head half-turned as he listened for the sound of steps in the stillness of the winter night.

"Will you be seated?" said the doctor blandly. "Can I be of any service?"

"Hush! Can you hear anything? There! that!" cried the newcomer, in an excited whisper. "They're coming!"

"Yes; mad," said the doctor to himself. Then aloud, "The sound you hear is the dripping of the melting snow on the pavement."

"Hah! Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes. Quite sure. Sit down, my dear sir. No, not here; come to my consulting-room. There is a fire."

The coolness of a doctor in dealing with ordinary delirium or insanity is in its way as heroic as the manner in which a soldier will face fire. To most men the advent of the strange visitor would have suggested calling in help or taking instant steps for self-preservations; but armed with weapons such as would prostrate his visitor should he prove inimical, the doctor calmly led the way into his consulting-room, poked the fire, turned up the lamp a little, and pointed to a chair, watching his visitor keenly the while to satisfy himself whether his behaviour was the result of fever, drink, or an unbalanced brain.

The man glared at the doctor for a moment, stepped quickly to the room door, opened it, listened, drew back again, closed it, and slipped the bolt on the inside.

Science-armed as he was, however, the doctor displayed no sign of trepidation, but sat down, waiting till his visitor came quickly back, threw his ulster over the back of the chair set for him, sank into it with a groan, dropped his face into his hands, and burst into a hysterical fit of sobbing.

"Hah!" said the doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder. "You seem overwrought, and—"

The stranger started back at the touch, and was about to spring up, a cry of fear escaping his lips; and his slouched hat fell off, showing his wet brow, with the tangled hair clinging to it in a matted mass.

"I thought—" he gasped. "Ah, doctor, it is you!"

"Yes, sir; sit down and let's see. You seem quite exhausted."

"Don't you know me, doctor?"

"Know you? Good heavens!" cried the doctor in astonishment. "Mark Heath?"

"Mark Heath," said the visitor, sinking back with a groan.

"We thought you must be dead," said the doctor.

"You thought I must be dead," said the young man, passing his hand over his brow, and speaking in a strange and laboured way. "Yes, and I thought I must be dead—a dozen times over. I'm half dead now. What's that?"

He almost yelled the last words as he started to his feet again, his eyes wild, his right hand clinched, and his left thrust into the breast, as if in search of a weapon.

"I heard nothing," said the doctor. "Sit down."

"Some one in the street trying to get in."

"No, no, no. Sit down, my dear boy. Come, come: what's the matter?"

"Are you sure you cannot hear any one?"

"Quite, and even if I could, no one could get in without I opened the door."

"Hah!" ejaculated the young man, sinking down; "brandy! for God's sake, brandy!"

The doctor looked at him, hesitated, and ended by laying his hand upon his visitor's pulse, as he sat gazing strangely at the door.

If the doctor's soft touch had been that of white-hot iron the effect could not have been greater, for with a smothered shriek the young man sprang from his chair and stood at bay by the door.

"Why, Mark Heath, my good fellow, this will not do," said the doctor blandly. "There, there, come and sit down. I was only feeling your pulse."

A faint smile came over the young man's face, and he walked back to his chair.

"I thought it was one of those fiends," he said, with a shudder.

The doctor coupled the admission with the mention of the brandy, but he was not satisfied as to the symptoms, though, seeing his visitor's exhaustion, he went to his closet and took out a spirit decanter, with tumblers, poured a little into one glass, and was about to add water to it from the little bright kettle singing on the hob, when the young man snatched at the glass, and tossed off the brandy at a gulp; but even as he was in the act of setting down the glass, he started and stared wildly round towards the door.

"Hist!" he whispered.

"Pooh! there is nothing, my dear sir," said the doctor: "why, any one would think you were being hunted by the police."

"Hunted? Yes," cried the young man thrusting the glass from him, and leaning across and seizing the doctor's wrist, "hunted—always hunted; but there were no police, doctor; why were they not near to protect me?"

"Ah, yes," said the doctor, to humour his patient, as with keen interest he watched every change in his mien. "They are generally absent when wanted. So you have been hunted, eh?"

"Hunted! Yes; like some miserable hare by the hounds. They are on my scent now. Night and day, doctor, night and day, till they have nearly driven me mad."

"Mad? Nonsense! Your brain is as sound as mine."

"Yes, now; but they will drive me mad. Night and day, I tell you—night and day, I have not dared to sleep," continued the young man wildly; "no, I have not dared to sleep, for fear that I should not wake again."

"Indeed, Heath! And who hunted you?"

"Fiends—demons in human form. I have been so that I could not sleep for fear of them. They have always been on my track—on the road through the desert, across the mountains, at the port, on shipboard; they appeared again here in England, at the docks, at the hotel, in the streets; hunted, I tell you, till I have seemed to be hunted to death."

"Be calm, my dear boy, be calm. Come, you must have sleep."

"Sleep? Yes, if I could only sleep; but no, I could not—I could not— only drink, doctor, drink; and it has never made me drunk, only keep me up—help me to escape from the devils."

"Ah, you have drunk a good deal, then?"

"Yes; brandy—brandy. It has been my only friend and support, doctor. I dared not go to an hotel; I was afraid to trust a bank; I had no friend to whom I could go; and I swore I would trust myself till I could get here safe in England."

"Where you are safe now."

"No, not yet, for they are tracking me. I got to Liverpool yesterday, and tried to throw them off; but they followed me to the hotel, and I dared trust no one there. They might have said I was mad, and claimed me; said I was a thief—a dozen things to get me into their hands."

"Be calm, Heath, be calm."

"Calm? How can a hunted man be calm with the jaws—the wet, hungry jaws—of the hounds on his heels—while he feels that in a moment they may spring upon him and rend him? Oh, doctor, doctor, you never were a hunted man."

"No, no," said the doctor blandly; "but we must master ourselves when we feel that excitement leading us astray."

"Ay, and I have mastered myself till I can do no more," cried the young man wildly; "I escaped from Liverpool."

"Escaped?"

"Yes, and managed to get to the train, as I thought, unseen; but at the first stopping station I saw the demons pass my carriage and look in. They had changed their dress, and disguised themselves, but I knew them at once, and that my attempts were vain. It was growing dark when we reached London, and when they took the tickets I waited till the train went on again, and then leaped for my life."

"You leaped from the train?"

"Yes. I wonder I did not when it was at full speed, faraway in the country."

"Hah!" ejaculated the doctor.

"I leaped from the train; but they were watching me, and they followed down the embankment and into a maze of little streets in North London yonder, where the fog and snow bewildered me; but I kept on all the evening, fearing to ask help of the police, dreading to go to an hotel for dinner. The dread, the want of sleep, have made me nearly mad. I did not know where to go, and at last, after struggling wildly to escape, I knew that my brain was going, that before long the dogs would drag me down. Then in my despair I thought of you."

"And came here?"

"Yes, for sanctuary, doctor. Save me from these devils—save me from myself. Doctor, is this to be the end of it all? I am alone—helpless: they may be listening even now. Doctor, for God's sake save me; I can do no more!"

Trembling in every limb, wildly excited, and with his despair written in every lineament of his face, Mark Heath dropped from his chair, and crept upon his knees before the doctor, holding up his clasped hands, and evidently so completely exhausted that he might have been mastered by a child.

"Yes, yes; of course, of course I will," said the doctor kindly. "There, come and lie down here on this couch."

"Lie down?" said the young man, with a suspicious look.

"To be sure; it will rest you. You are quite safe here."

"Safe? Am I safe?"

"Of course," said the doctor, spreading the fallen ulster over the young man's shivering form, as he slowly lay down.

"Stop! where are you going?"

"Only into the next room—the surgery," said the doctor, turning to face his visitor's fierce eyes as he started up from the couch.

"What for? Is it to admit those devils."

Mark Heath, in a fit of impotent rage, made a dash to reach the fireplace, but his feet were hampered by the ulster, and he would have fallen heavily had not the doctor caught him in his arms.

"Why, man," he said, "I was going to get you something to take— something to calm you. It is impossible for you to go on like this."

The young man looked at him wildly.

"I can't help it," he said, calming down. "I have been hunted till I am afraid of everybody. Save me, doctor, for you can."

"Lie down, then; there: that's better."

"Yes. I am so helpless and so weak," the poor fellow moaned. "The brandy kept me up, but it makes me wild."

"Then you shall have something that will calm you, and not make you wild," said the doctor; and he went out of the room, leaving his visitor lying down with his eyes closed.

But the moment he was alone, Mark Heath started up on one arm, listening, and thrust his hand into his breast. He was listening for the unlocking of a door; but he heard the chink of a glass and the faint gurgle of some fluid, and he sank back with a sigh of relief.

"Rich—my darling," he said softly; "it is for you, sweet—for you!"

"There," said the doctor, re-entering with a glass; "drink that, and you must have some sleep. We shall soon get you right."

"Heaven bless you, doctor!" cried the young man, hysterically pressing his hand after draining the glass. "I feel in sanctuary here. Ah," he sighed, as he sank back, "to be at rest once more, and safe! Doctor, you must guard over me and what I have here."

"Oh, yes," said the doctor, sitting down after replenishing the fire. "Did you have a rough passage back?"

"I don't know—I know nothing but that those fiends were after me to get it, and I knew that they would kill me if they could only get a chance. A heated hare sees nothing but the hounds."

"No, of course not," said the doctor, speaking softly to keep his patient's attention, but watching him intently the while, to see the effect of his medicine. "Let's see, you have been away four years."

"Yes, four years," said Mark, speaking more calmly now. "Lost every penny, farming, doctor. No good."

"I am sorry to hear that."

"Then I tried—wagon-driving, and made a respectable living—doing regular carter's work till I had a team and wagon of my own; but I went one bad time—right across the desert, and found myself at last—seated on the last bullock of my team of twenty—by the wreck of my wagon— doctor dying—for want of water."

"Ah! that was bad."

"Yes, but I was picked up by a party who came in the nick of time. They were going by across journey to the diamond-fields."

"Ah! you went there?"

"Yes, I went there," said the young man drowsily, and speaking in a restful manner and with many pauses. "Rough life, and for six months— no good. Then luck turned. I went on. At last found—self rich man. Rather absurd, doctor—handful of stones—stones, crystals—handful in a leather bag. Soon nothing. I often laughed. Seemed so much trash, but the right thing. Very large some of them, and I worked on—digging—and picking. Knew I was a wealthy man."

"You were very fortunate, then?"

"Yes," was the drowsy reply. "Then began the curse of it. Couldn't keep it—secret. Found out that it was dangerous. Ought to have banked, but they were—were so hard to get. 'Fraid of everybody. Felt—felt should be murdered. Nearly drove—drove me wild. Made secret—secret plans—escape—get home—old England. To bring—to bring—bag of diamonds—leather bag—worth a deal—bring home myself. Followed—followed me. Three men—part of gang out there—gamble and cheat men—at play. Always—always—on my track—hunted—at bay—sea— always watching—like tigers—Ah!"

He sprang up from his drowsy muttering state, in which he had been incoherently piercing together his imaginary or real adventures, and gazed wildly round.

"Who's that?"

"It is only I—Doctor Chartley. Lie down again."

"I thought they'd come, and I—I was telling them. Bag of diamonds. No. Nonsense! All rubbish! Poor man. Going home. 'Nough to pay his passage. All nonsense. No diamonds; no nothing."

He had sunk back once more, and went on muttering as he dropped asleep.

The doctor sat watching him, and then rose and tapped the fire together, picking up a few fresh pieces of coal to augment the blaze, which seemed to send some of the fog out of the room.

"Wild dissipation—gambling with Nature for treasure," said the doctor softly. "Imagination, poor wretch!"

The doctor bent down over his patient, who was now sleeping deeply, but had tossed the ulster aside, so that it was gliding down.

"Curious, this wild delirium," said the doctor, rearranging the improvised cover. "I often wonder that I have not made it a study and— Good heavens!"

He started back from the couch, and stood staring at his patient for a few minutes before advancing again, and laying his hand upon his breast gently, and then thrusting it beneath the fold of the thick pea-jacket.

"It is not delirium; they—"

The doctor hesitated a few moments after drawing back from the couch once more. Then, with his whole manner changed, he thrust his hand into the sleeping man's breast, glanced round, and, satisfied that he was not overlooked, drew forth a good-sized wash-leather bag, simply tied round the neck with a strip of the same skin.

"Stones," muttered the doctor, with his face agitated and his eyes glittering; and after balancing the bag in his hand and glancing at the sleeping man, he placed it upon the table, where the light of the lamp was upon it full.

Then ensued a period of hesitation, the doctor's fingers worked as he stood gazing down at the little yellowish-drab bag, and anon at his patient.

Then the newly awakened curiosity prevailed, and, unable to contain himself, he rapidly untied the string, drew open the bag, and saw that it was nearly full of large rough crystals, which sparkled in a feeble way in the light.

"Why, they must be worth a large sum," muttered the doctor, pouring out some of the stones into his hand, but pouring them back with a shudder. "How horrible!"

He did not say what was horrible, but hastily retied the bag and placed it back in the sleeping man's breast, before hurrying out into the surgery, and pacing to and fro in an agitated way.



CHAPTER NINE.

THE STRANGE ACCIDENT.

A change seemed to have come over Doctor Chartley. A short time before he was calm and placid, his movements were slow, and a pleasant stereotyped professional smile made his handsome face beam. But now all was changed; the smile had gone, and, as he had passed to and fro, the light from the gas bracket displayed a countenance puckered with curious lines and frowns, while the variations of shadow caused by his constantly-changing position seemed to have altered him into another man.

He went back into the consulting-room, and looked at his patient, to find him breathing more easily and plunged into a deep sleep; and as he bent over him his hand stole toward the prostrate man's breast.

He snatched it away angrily, and returned to the surgery, to resume his hurried walk, muttering to himself, his thoughts finding utterance in sound, till he started and looked about him, as if in dread of being overheard.

Stealing back to the consulting-room, he went to the closet, and took out the bottle which contained the result of his studies, and looked at it with a sigh. Then he raised the retort and its stand from the shelf, shook his head, and replaced it.

"And if I only had money," he thought, "I could carry out my experiments at my ease, and succeed. This miserable poverty would be no more; my children would be happy; and I should win a name which would become immortal."

He shook his head, his brow grew darker, and a terrible temptation attacked him.

"No one saw him come here. It is his fancy that he has been followed. One life. What is one life in this vast world? One life. Why, my discovery perfected would be the saving of the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of generations of human beings in this teeming earth. Suppose he slept and waked no more? Ah!"

The doctor stood gazing down at the sleeping man.

"Such temptations come to all," he said softly; "and I have seen so many die that the passing away of one—well, what is it but the deep long sleep into which I could make him glide without pain?

"Ah, and afterwards? Poor lad! He came to me for sanctuary, and I had betrayed my trust. How could I look in the face of my son again—in the eye of my girl? Those clear eyes would read my secret, and I should be as one accurst."

He bent down over the sleeping man again, and in spite of himself his hand stole gently towards his heart, trembling.

"They are worth thousands," he said, "and they lie there as if of the value of a few pence. He came to me for refuge. Well, he shall not find that I have failed."

There was no tremor in his hand now as he re-arranged the cover over Mark Heath's breast, to stand afterwards calmly watching his guest; and then to go out into the surgery, turn down the gas, and slowly pace the floor, thinking deeply.

Every inch of the surgery was so familiar that the darkness was the same to him as the light, and the bitter coldness of the place seemed to refresh him.

At the end of a few minutes he stood perfectly still, thinking; and then going to one of the shelves, he ran his hand softly along the top row of small bottles, took one, and turned down the gas.

As he entered the consulting-room again, he glanced at the label, nodded his head in a satisfied manner, and after a glance at his patient he seemed to make up his mind what to do.

"Perhaps I shall sleep," he thought, "and if I do he may wake. It will be a simple way."

He smiled as he took the glass into which he had previously poured the brandy, and poured in a little more, to which he added sugar, and half-filled the glass with hot water from the kettle.

"He will be sure to drink that," he said, as he replaced the glass within easy reach of the sofa; and then removing the stopper from the blue bottle he held, replaced it partly in the neck, rested it upon the edge of the steaming glass, and began to count the drops which fell.

One—two—three.

Each drop at an interval after the one which had preceded it, while with his left hand he steadied the tumbler.

As the third drop fell into the glass there was a strange noise outside—a dull scuffling of feet, mutterings of voices, and then a low imperious tapping on the panel of the door.

At the first sound the doctor turned his head sharply and gazed in the direction of the door, while the rest of his body seemed to have become fixed in a cataleptic state, save that his eyes dilated and his jaw dropped.

And meanwhile, slowly and steadily, drip—drip—drip—drip, the globules of fluid fell from the tip of the blue bottle into the steaming glass at last in quite a stream.

A strange dread had overcome the doctor. His patient's words about his diamonds had proved to be true; were the rest, then, true—that he had been pursued by men whose aim it was to plunder, perhaps murder him, and they had really traced him down here?

"Bah! am I turning childish?" said the doctor, starting up, and letting the stopper fall back into its place in the bottle, just as his patient moaned slightly, turned impatiently in his sleep, and the ulster glided to the floor.

The doctor stooped quickly, raised it, and threw it over his patient, and, as he bent over him, listened intently to the repetition of the tapping.

"It might be," he said softly. "Pish! absurd! The wanderings of a diseased mind."

Catching up the bottle from where he had placed it on the table, he walked quickly towards the door, paused, returned, and stooped as if to pick up the poker. Then smiled at his folly.

He passed softly out of the door, and closed it after him, to go to the shelves in the dark, where he made a clicking noise among the bottles, as he reached up; for there in the darkness the feeling once more assailed him that his patient might be right, while for the third time, more plainly heard now, there came a sharp tapping.

The doctor crossed to the gas bracket, turned it up, and as its light filled the surgery, he walked boldly to the lobby-door, opened it, and the dull red glare from the fanlight over the outer door shone upon his handsome placid face.

The next moment he had opened the outer door, and was gazing at a group of three men.

Mark Heath's announcement flashed through his brain once more, and then gave place to the ideas furnished by his visitors.

"Thought you were a-bed. Couldn't find the bell. This cursed fog, sir. Our friend here knocked down by a cab, and we saw your red light as we were trying to get him to our hotel."

"Tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated the doctor. "Bring him in, gentlemen."

He glanced at his visitors. Saw that they were well-dressed men in ulsters and low-crowned hats, and that the speaker was a well-built fellow with a closely-cut beard; while another was a rather Mephistophelean-looking man, with cheeks closely shaven, and upper lip bearing a bristly moustache.

Between them they supported a slight, young-looking companion, who was moaning slightly, but evidently making an effort to be firm.

"Mind, Harry—Rogers," he said, in a high-pitched voice, "it's as if something red-hot was running through my chest! Ah-h-h!"

"Support him, gentlemen," said the doctor. "Mind he doesn't faint. Here, quick! Here!"

He spoke in sharp, decided tones, as he directed and helped them to lay the injured man upon the settee, where he subsided with a querulous cry, grinding his teeth the while, and compressing his lips.

"Kindly shut both doors," said the doctor; and the man who had first spoken, and who looked very pale, obeyed.

"So cursedly unlucky!" he said excitedly. "I never saw such a fog. They've no business to allow men to drive fast on a night like this."

"Don't talk, old chap. Not serious, I hope, doctor?" said the Mephistophelean man. "Cab seemed to come out of the fog, and he was knocked down. I got an ugly blow on the shoulder."

"Get me some brandy," said the injured man faintly. "My chest's crushed."

"No, no, not so bad as that," said the doctor kindly. "You shall have a stimulus soon. Now, then, suppose we see what the damage is. A broken rib, I expect, and that will only mean a little pain. Now, then."

His busy fingers were rapidly and tenderly unbuttoning the injured man's coat, while a gasping moan came from his lips.

"Hurts me horribly—to breathe, doctor."

There was a gasping sound, and the Mephistophelean man reeled, tried to save himself, and fell against the consulting-room door, which somehow flew open, revealing the sleeping figure of Mark Heath on the couch.

"My dear sir—faint?"

"I beg your pardon, doctor," said the sinister-looking man. "Sick as a great girl. I can bear pain, but to see him like that turned me over. No, no, see to him; I'm better now."

The doctor continued his task, while the door swung to once more.

"Still feel faint?" said the doctor, without looking up.

"Oh, no; it's all gone now. I really am ashamed."

"Nothing to be ashamed of, my dear sir. It is a man's nature. Now I shall be obliged to ask one of you to lend me a little assistance here."

The bearded man stood ready, and exchanged a glance with his Mephistophelean companion, who was behind the doctor now.

"Ah!"

Dr Chartley uttered a quick ejaculation, for, as he bent over his patient, the man behind struck him a heavy blow with a short thick life-preserver, and, quick almost as lightning, delivered another crashing stroke on the back of the head.

Without so much as a groan, merely a catching at the air, the doctor fell forward upon his supposed patient, and then rolled with a dull heavy sound upon the carpet, to lie motionless—to all appearance dead.

"Yah! what a butcher you are, Rogers!" said the sham patient, in a querulous high-pitched tone.

"Hold your row! Quick! Listen at that door."

The sham patient sprang to the door at the end of the passage, opened it softly, and stood listening.

"All right," he whispered, "still as death."

"Curse you! hold your row about death," whispered the other as the door was closed. "Lock it."

"I was going to," said the younger man, turning the key softly. "Is he there, Harry?"

"Yes; all right," came in a whisper from the bearded man, who had softly opened the consulting-room door and peered in at the sleeping figure upon the couch. "Quick! come on."

The man addressed as Rogers had stooped down and then gone on one knee, thrusting the life-preserver into his pocket while he examined the doctor, and not noticing that it slipped out onto the skirt of his coat, and rolled aside as he finished his examination, and satisfied himself that there was nothing to be apprehended there.

He started up, and followed his companion on tiptoe, and the next minute they were gazing down at the man they had tracked from the diamond-fields and run to earth at last.

"Hah!" exclaimed the Mephistopheles of the party; "that's right. Give him one if he moves."

This to his bearded companion, who had drawn a life-preserver similar to that his companion had used, as he bent over the sleeping man.

"He has had a dose," was whispered back. "You can smell his breath."

"Brandy. All right!" cried the youngest of the three, catching up the decanter, smelling it, tasting it with a loud smack of the lips, and pouring out a goodly portion in the empty glass, he handed it to his first companion. "Here, Harry."

"Sure it's all right?" was whispered back.

"Swear it. Now, Rogers."

"Here's mine," said the man, with a grin. "Hot with. Quick, lads!"

"Don't touch that," was on the younger man's lips; but his companion raised the glass with a laugh, and as he followed his example by putting the decanter to his mouth, the doctor's assailant literally poured the contents of the tumbler down his throat, and then stood still, put the glass back on the table, gasping and staring straight before him.

His companions were not heeding him, for each drank eagerly of the brandy, and were setting down the decanter and glass, when the younger man spoke:

"Why, Rogers, old chap!"

The man addressed turned his wild staring eyes at him for a moment, as if to answer, and then walked blindly between the sofa and the table, as if to go straight to the wall, reeled and fell, catching at the cloth, which he dragged aside, nearly causing the lamp to go crashing on the floor.

For a few moments the others stood aghast, staring at their prostrate companion, who writhed slightly for a brief period, uttering a curious sound, and then lay upon his back, stretched out motionless.

The younger man was the first to recover himself.

"Help!" he gasped, in a hoarse whisper.

"Hush!" cried his companion; "are you mad?"

He raised his life-preserver threateningly, and the other gazed at him with ghastly face and staring eyes.

"What shall we do?" he whispered.

"Keep your head, and don't be a fool," was the reply.

As the bearded man spoke he went down on one knee, thrust his hand into his comrade's breast, and then rose quickly.

"What is it, Harry—poison?"

"Yes, grim death, lad."

"Then, we've got it, too."

"No—all right. The fool! Smell that glass."

He took up and held the tumbler to his nose, and then passed it to his companion, who smelt it, and put it down with a shudder.

"Come on," he panted; "let's get away."

"Without the diamonds—now?"

"I'm no use," groaned the younger man.

"Hold up, curse you! It's fortune of war. One man down. Prize-money to divide between two instead of three."

"Hah!" ejaculated the other, upon whom his comrade's words acted like magic. "I'm all sight, now. Quick! let's have 'em!"

The elder man had already thrust his hand into Mark's breast.

"Well?"

"All right."

"Are they there?"

"Yes; safe enough."

"Get 'em out, then, and let's go. Curse it! Look at old Roger's eyes."

There was a dull heavy sound of a door banged, and the two men started up in an agony of dread that the spoil for which they had toiled so patiently and long, never getting it within their clutch till now, was about to be snatched away.

It was a door that had been banged, and in their ignorance of the configuration of the place they did not realise that it was in the next house.

"Keep your head," said the elder man.

"Right. I'm cool enough," was the reply. "Quick! get 'em out, and let's go!"

"It would take half an hour to get at them. He has a belt buckled round his waist under everything, and there'll be stones sewn into his clothes all over."

"Curse it all!"

"Hush! Quick! Take hold of that ulster, and there's his hat."

"What are you going to do?"

"We've got him. He's drugged, and we can do what we like."

"What! bring him away?"

"Yes. Quick! take hold of that arm!"

"But if he wakes?"

"Send him to sleep, as we did the doctor. Now, held your row, do as I do, and keep your head."

The younger man obeyed, and catching Mark Heath's arm, as his companion had done on the other side, they placed his hat upon his head, and in a half-conscious way he made an effort to walk, so that they had no difficulty in getting him into the surgery.

"Now, then, button-up. I'll hold him," said the elder man.

"But when we get him in the street?" whispered the other.

"Well—what? He's drunk. We'll get him in a cab. No one will interfere. Leave it to me, and back me up. Quick! shut that door; and then turn on the light."

The orders were obeyed; and as soon as they stood in the darkness the lobby-door was opened, where the red light gave them sufficient illumination to finish their proceedings.

Another minute, and, their victim's arm well gripped on either side, the elder man said hoarsely, "Ready?"

"Yes; but are you sure that he had the stuff on him?"

"Trust me for that. Now, be cool, and the diamonds are ours. Off!"

The outer door was opened, and with very little difficulty Mark Heath was half-lifted, half-led outside, in an inert, helpless condition, his brain steeped in sleep, and his mind a blank. Then the two men stood in the snow, listening for a sound within the house.

It was the elder who spoke then:

"Get your arm well under him. Hold hard! Shut the door. Mind he don't slip down. It's dark as pitch. Now, then, come on."

At that moment John Whyley turned on his lamp.



CHAPTER TEN.

"AY, MARRY IS'T; CROWNER'S QUEST LAW."

A jury of men, chosen with the careful selection always made by the coroner's officer, and with such extraordinary happy results, sat solemnly and listened to the evidence, after hearing the coroner's preliminary address, and viewing the body of the deceased.

Witness by witness, all were examined. John Whyley told all he knew, and produced the life-preserver; Richmond Chartley, brought from her father's bedside, where he lay perfectly insensible, gave her account of the proceedings, and directly after joined Janet Heath, who was her companion, and sat down to try once more to disentangle her thoughts, which, from the time she had left the surgery with the bottle of chloral till she was alarmed by the persistent ringing of the doctor's night-bell, had been in a state of wild confusion.

Hendon Chartley gave his evidence. How he had been spending the evening with a gentleman of his acquaintance, and on letting himself in with his latch-key he had heard voices in the surgery, and gone there.

Mr James Poynter, the gentleman with whom Hendon Chartley had been dining corroborated the last witness, and seemed disgusted that he had not a better part to play, especially after his announcement to the coroner that he was a great friend of the family.

For some reason of their own, the sapient jurymen exchanged glances several times during the evidence of the last two witnesses, and shook their heads, while one man began to make notes on the sheet of paper before him with a very scratchy pen, whereupon two more immediately caught the complaint, and the foreman regretted to himself that he wasn't as handy with ink as he could wish.

The surgeon was of course a very important witness, and he told how the man upon whose body the inquest was being held had undoubtedly died of an excessive dose of hydrocyanic acid, of which poison there was, naturally enough, a bottle in the doctor's surgery; but how it had been administered, whether by accident, purposely, or with suicidal intent, it was impossible to say; and apparently the only man who could throw any light upon the subject was Doctor Chartley himself, who was now lying in a precarious state, perfectly insensible from the pressure of bone upon the brain, and too feeble for an operation to be performed.

"Not the only man," said one of the jury; "three men were seen by the policeman to leave the surgery."

The coroner said "Exactly;" and there was a murmur of assent; while, after stating that it was impossible to say how long Dr Chartley would be before he could appear, and that it was quite possible that he would never be able to give evidence at all, the surgeon's evidence came to an end.

Elizabeth Gundry was called; and a frightened-looking smudgy woman came forward, trembling and fighting hard not to burst into tears, hysterical sobbing having filled up so much of her time since the foggy night that her voice had degenerated into an appealing whine. She was smudgy-looking, but undoubtedly clean; only life in underground kitchens, and the ingraining of London blacks with the baking process of cookery, had given her skin an unwholesome tinge, which her reddened eyes did not improve.

Questioned, she knew nothing but that she thought she had heard the doctor's bell ring; but that she always put her head under the clothes if she did hear it, and she did so that night. Further questioned why, she said with sobs that it was a very large house, and nobody was kept but her and Bob; and she was "that tired when she went to bed that she thought it weren't fair to expect her to get up and answer the night-bell, and so she never would hear it if it rang. It warn't her place; for though she did housemaid's work, and there was two sets of front-doorsteps, she considered herself a cook."

Here there was a furious burst of sobbing, and the foreman of the jury wanted to know why.

Now he, being a pleasant-looking man, won upon Elizabeth Gundry more than the coroner did, that gentleman being suggestive of an extremely sharp ratting terrier grown fat. So Elizabeth informed the foreman that her grief was, of course, partly on account of master, and she thought it very shocking for there to be a murder in "our house;" but what she wanted to know was what had become of Bob, whom she was sure one of those bad men had smuggled away under his coat.

Of course, this brought Bob to the front, and, growing garrulous now, Elizabeth informed everybody that Bob was a regular limb, but evidently a favourite; and since Bob had answered her out of the surgery regarding his supper, Bob had not been seen or heard of, and it was her opinion that he had been killed, so as not to tell all he knew.

Bob's bed had not been slept in; Bob's hat was hanging in the pantry, and the police had not been able to discover where Bob had gone.

The mystery seemed to thicken, and Elizabeth was questioned till she broke down sobbing once more, after declaring that Bob was the mischievousest young imp as ever lived, but she was very fond of him; and if it hadn't been for his wicked old tipsy mother, who was no better than a thief, there weren't a dearer, more lovable boy in the "old world."

The sergeant of police and John Whyley made notes, afterwards compared, about Bob and his mother, and Elizabeth went off crying and refusing to be comforted because of Bob.

Then the sergeant stated perspiringly in the hot room, buttoned up in his coat, that the cabman had been found; and in due course a red-nosed, prominent-eyed member of the four-wheeled fraternity corroborated John Whyley's evidence as to the three men whom he took in his cab. He reiterated the statement that "one on 'em was very tight;" told that he drove them to an hotel in Surrey Street, close to the Embankment, and corrected himself as to the driving, because "You see, gents, it was like this here: the fog was that thick, if you sat on the box you couldn't see the 'oss's tail, let alone his ears, and you had to lead him all the way."

Did the men go into the hotel?

He couldn't say; they helped out the one as was so very tight, and they gave him arf-suffrin—first money he'd took that night, and the last, on account of the fog.

And where did the three men go—into the hotel?

He didn't know; they seemed to him to go into the fog. Everythink went into the fog that night or come out on it. It was all fog as you might 'most ha' cut with a knife; and when he had a wash next morning, his face was that black with the sut you might ha' took him for a sweep.

But the man who seemed to be drunk, did he say anything?

Not a word.

"Would he know the men again?"

Not likely; and besides, if he took notice of all parties as was very tight, and as he took home in his keb, he'd have enough to do. That there fog was so thick that—

The coroner said that would do, and after the people at the hotel had been called to prove that no one had entered their place after eleven o'clock that night, and that the bell had not been rung, the coroner said that the case would have for the present to be left in the hands of the police, who would, he hoped, elucidate what was at present one of the mysteries of our great city. He did not think he was justified in starting a theory of his own as to the causes of the dramatic scene that must have taken place in Dr Chartley's surgery. They were met to investigate the causes of the death of this man, who was at present unknown. No doubt the police would be able to trace the three men who left the surgery that night, and during the adjournment Dr Chartley would probably recover; and so on, and so on; a long harangue in which it seemed as if the fog, of which so much mention had been made, had got into the evidence.

Finally the coroner said that he did not think he should be doing his duty if he did not mark the feeling he had with respect to the conduct of the police-constable John Whyley.

The gentleman in question glowed, for he felt that he had suddenly become a prominent personage, with chevrons upon his arm to denote his rise in rank. Then he froze, and his face assumed a terribly blank expression, for the coroner went on to say that never in the whole course of his experience, which now extended over a quarter of a century, had he been cognisant of such utterly crass stupidity as that of this policeman—a man who, in his opinion, ought to be dismissed from the force.

John Whyley wished a wicked wish after the jury had been dismissed, and orders given for the burial of the Mephistophelean-looking man, lying so stiff and ghastly in the parish shell—and John Whyley's wish was that it had been the coroner instead of Doctor Chartley who had got "that one—two on the nob."



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

MR POYNTER POLISHES HIS HAT.

James Poynter rang four times at Dr Chartley's door-bell, and rapped as many at the great grinning knocker tied in flannel, before he heard the chain put up and the lock shot back, to display the smudgy unwholesome countenance of Elizabeth Gundry, who always blinked like a night-bird when forced to leave her dark kitchen.

"There, hang it, woman, open the door!" cried Poynter. "Do you take me for a thief?"

"No, sir, I didn't know it was you; but I am so scared, sir, and they ain't found Bob yet."

Elizabeth did not hear what James Poynter said about Bob, for she closed the door, took down the chain, opened slowly and grudgingly, and the visitor entered.

"How's the doctor?"

"Awful, please, sir, just; he's there with his eyes shut, as if he was going to die, and Miss Rich and Miss Janet taking it in turns to sit up night and day."

"Ask Miss Chartley to come down and see me."

"Which, please, sir, she said as she couldn't see nobody now."

"You go and do as I tell you."

"Which it ain't my place, sir, to answer the front-door-bell at all. Poor Bob!"

She ended with a sob, and put her apron to her eyes.

"I say," said Poynter, giving her apron a twitch and dragging it down, "look here."

"Well, I'm sure!" began Elizabeth indignantly.

"Look here; have your wages been paid?"

"Lor', no, sir, not for ever so long," said Elizabeth, with an air of surprise at the absurdity of the question.

"Then look here, Elizabeth: you know what I come here for, don't you?"

"I think I can guess, sir," said the woman, suddenly becoming interested and smiling weakly.

"Of course you can. You're a sharp 'un, that's what you are. So look here: the day I'm married I'll pay your wages, and I'll give you a fi'-pun note to buy yourself a new bonnet and gown. Now go up and say I'm waiting to see Miss Richmond on particular business."

Elizabeth's eyes opened widely, and there was a peculiar look of satisfaction therein, as she closed the door, led the way into the dining-room, and then, after giving the visitor a nod of intelligence, she left him to go up-stairs and deliver her message.

"Pah! how the place smells!" muttered Poynter. "Any one would think that chap was here now. A nasty, damp, fusty hole!"

He listened eagerly, but the step he hoped to hear was not coming, and he began to walk up and down, twisting his silk handkerchief round, and polishing his glossy hat the while.

"I'm screwed up now," he muttered. "I'm not afraid of her. She can't say no, but if she does, she's got to learn something. Perhaps she don't know what putting on the screw means, and I shall have to teach her. All for her good. Hah!"

There was no mistake now; a step was descending the stairs, and James Poynter once more looked round for a mirror for a final glance; but there was nothing of the kind on the blank walls, and he had to face Richmond unfurbished.

She entered the room, looking quite calm, but very pale, and the blue rings about her eyes told of her sufferings and anxiety. There was a slight heightening of her colour, though, for a few moments, as the visitor advanced with extended hand, in which she placed hers for a few moments before motioning him to a seat.

"How's the doctor?" he said huskily, and then coughed to clear his throat.

"Very, very ill, Mr Poynter," was the reply. "I am sorry, but I must ask you to please see Doctor Maurice, who has promised to attend any of my father's patients if they called."

"Oh! bother Doctor Maurice! I'm better now. Quite well."

James Poynter had partaken of the greater portion of a bottle of champagne before he came, so as to screw himself up, as he termed it; and there was plenty of decision of a rude and vulgar type as he spoke.

"I beg your pardon; I thought you had come to consult my father. You have come to see how he was?"

"No, I didn't? You know what I've come for."

Richmond did know, and perfectly well; but as she scorned to make use of farther subterfuge, she remained silent.

"I'm a plain fellow, Miss Rich, and I know what's what," he said, "Hendon and I've had lots of chats together about money matters, and you want money now."

"Mr Poynter!"

"Now, now, now! sit down, and don't get in a wax, my dear, with a man who has come as a friend. I'm well enough off now, but I know the time when a half-crown seemed riches, and if a friend had come to me, I'd ha' said 'Bless yer!'"

"If you have come as a friend of my brother, Mr Poynter, I am grateful."

"Now, don't put me on one side like that, Miss Rich—don't. I have come as a friend—the best of friends. I know what things are, and that you're pushed for money."

"Mr Poynter!" indignantly.

"Yes, I know what you are going to say. 'Tain't put delicate. Can't help that. I'm a City man of business; but if it ain't put delicately it's put honest. We don't put things delicately in the City."

"I have no doubt of your intentions, Mr Poynter, and I am grateful."

"Thank you, and that's right. Now, don't kick at what I'm going to say, and let it hurt your pride, because it is only between you and your best friend—the man as loves you. There, I came to say that, and I'm glad it's out."

"Mr Poynter," said Rich hastily, "I am worn out. I am ill. I have that terrible trouble in the house. It is not the time to speak to me like this."

"That's where you're wrong, my dear; for when should your best friend come if it isn't when you're sick, and so pushed for money that you don't know where to turn?"

"Oh, the shame of it!" moaned Rich to herself, as her eyes flashed with mortification, while Poynter went on polishing his hat.

"You see I know all about it, and I want to show you that I'm no fine-weather friend."

"Mr Poynter I have told you that I am ill; will you please to bring this visit to an end? I—I cannot bear it."

"Yes, you can," he said, in what was meant to be a soothing tone; "let's have it over at once, and have done with it. I won't hurry you. I only want to feel that it will be some day before long; and till then here's my hand, and it don't come to you empty. Say what's troubling you, and what you want to pay, and there's my cheque for it. I don't care how much it is."

"Mr Poynter," cried Rich, "you force me to speak out. I cannot take your help, and what you wish is impossible."

"Oh, no, it isn't!" he said, smiling, and leaving his handkerchief hanging on his hat as he tried to take her hand, which she withdrew; "I saw the doctor the other day, before this upset. We had a long chat over it, and he was willing."

"What! my father willing?"

"To give his consent? Yes."

"It is impossible!" cried Rich.

"Oh, no, it isn't, and what's more, Hendon and I have often chatted this over together, and he's willing, too. Now, I say, what is the use of making a fuss over it? There, we understand one another, and I want to help you at once."

"Mr Poynter," cried Rich, "I now calmly and firmly tell you that what you wish can never take place. Will you allow me to pass?"

"No," said Poynter, flushing angrily, "I won't. Now, don't put me in a temper over this by being foolish. What's the good of it? You know it's for the best, and that as my wife you can help the old man, and get your brother on. See what a practise you could buy Hendon by and by."

"Mr Poynter, I have already told you, I can say no more."

"Don't say any more, then," he cried, barring her way of exit, as he gave his hat a final polish, and pocketed his handkerchief. "I respect you—no, I love you all the more for holding out; but there's been enough of it now, so let's talk sensibly. Come, I say. Why, after this upset some men would have fought shy of the place, even if you'd had a fortune. I don't: I come to you quite humble, and say what shall I do for you first?"

Rich stood before him pale, and with her eyes flashing in a way that penetrated even the thick hide of his vanity, and was unmistakable.

"Look here," he said angrily, "don't go on like that. It makes a fellow feel put out."

Richmond once more essayed to leave the room, but Poynter stayed her.

"Look here," he said, "I'm a City man, I am. I began life with nothing, but I said to myself I'd make my fortune, and I've made it. While other fellows were fooling about, I worked till I could afford to do as they did, and then, perhaps, I had my turn. Then I saw you, and when I had seen you I said to myself that's the woman for my wife."

"Mr Poynter!"

"Yes, and some day it shall be Mrs Poynter. I said it should, and so it shall!"

"Mr Poynter, will you leave this house?"

"No, I won't," he replied bitterly, "not till you've thrown all this nonsense aside, and made friends. What a temper! Now, look here, Rich, I've been afraid of you. I've come here to see the doctor, and I've shivered when I've seen you. I've wanted to speak to you, but my tongue has seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth; but that's all over now, and we're going to understand one another before I go."

"Sir, this is insolence!"

"Insolence!" he said, with the champagne effervescing as it were, in his veins. "No, it's love."

Richmond rang the bell.

"Bah!" he said, "what of that? When the girl comes—if she does—I shall tell her to go, for I mean to be master here now."

"Coward!"

"No, not a coward now," he replied, laughing. "Rich, do you know what I can do if I like? I can come down on brother Hendon for all he owes me, and how would it be then?"

Richmond winced, and the flush in her cheeks paled away, while Poynter saw it, and went on:

"What should you say if I was to act like a business man would, and come down on your father!"

"What? My father! He does not owe you money?"

"Doesn't he!" said Poynter, with a mocking laugh. "You see you don't know everything, my dear. Come, what's it going to be—peace or war?"

"War!" said Richmond firmly. "My father cannot owe you money, and as to my brother, he would sooner die than see his sister sold as a slave to pay his debts."

"Would he?" snarled Poynter. "Why he's as weak as water; I can turn him around my thumb. You tried to keep him away. He wouldn't own it; but I know. He came, though, all the same, when I asked him; and he will come, too, as often as I like, and he'll help me to make you—Bah! nonsense! Come, don't let's talk like this: you're out of sorts, and no wonder, and I've come at a bad time. To-morrow you'll be cool, and you'll put that little hand in mine, and say, 'James Poynter, you've acted like a man and my best friend, and I won't say no.'"

He tried to take her hand, but she shrank from him.

"Sir, I beg that you will not come here again," she said, drawing herself up. "I am not blind to your position with my brother, but—"

"Your brother's a weak-minded young fool!" cried Poynter, who had now thoroughly become roused, so withering was the contempt written in Rich's eyes; "and—"

He stopped short, for in the heat of the encounter neither had heard the latch-key in the front-door, nor the opening of that of the room, to admit Hendon Chartley, who stood still for a few moments, and then strode to his sister's side and put his arm round her.

"Yes," he said hoarsely, "I have been a weak young fool, James Poynter, to let you play with me as you pleased; but please God, with my sister's help, I'm going to be strong now, and if you don't leave this house I'll kick you out."

"You kick me out!" snarled Poynter, snatching his handkerchief from his pocket and polishing his hat savagely; "not you! So it's going to be war, is it? Why, if I liked—There, you needn't threaten. I'm not going to quarrel with you, my lad, because we're going to be brothers."

"Brothers!" cried Hendon, in tones of contempt.

"Yes, my lad, brothers. I've gone the right way to work, and you know it, too. There, we're all peppery now. Rich, my dear, you know what I've said. I'm not angry. It was only a flash, and you won't make me any the worse for speaking out like a man. Next time I come we shall be better friends."

He gave his hat a final polish, flourished his handkerchief, and left the room.

"Hendon, Hendon, what have you done?" cried Richmond, as soon as they were alone. "Had we not trouble enough without this?"

"The cad!" cried Hendon angrily.

"And after what had passed you went to him again!"

"How could I help it?" said the young man, with a groan. "I owe him money, and it's like a chain about my neck. He tugs it, and I'm obliged to go."

"And he hinted that our poor father was in his debt."

"The governor? Oh, Rich!"

Richmond said nothing, but returned to her watching by her father's pillow, asking herself whether the chain was being fitted to her own limbs, and whether, to save those she loved, she was to become this man's slave.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE DREAMS OF A FEVER.

A dreamy sensation of cold and thick darkness and stumbling on and on, with a dull light glowing about his head and fading away directly, then more darkness and stumbling on, and once more a dull yellow glow, and this fading away, with the darkness increasing. Then a slight struggle, and a few petulant remonstrances.

Why wouldn't the doctor let him sleep?

Then another feeble struggle, a sensation of passing through the air, a sudden plunge into the icy water, and then utter darkness, and a noise, as if of thunder, in his ears.

But the sudden immersion was electric in its effect, sending a thrill through nerve and muscle, though the brain remained still drowsily inert, while the natural instinct of desire for life chased away the helpless state of collapse; and Mark Heath, old athlete, expert swimmer, man hardened by his life in the southern colony, rose to the surface, and struck out, swimming slowly and mechanically, as if it were the natural action of his muscles. On and on, breasting the icy water, keeping just afloat, but progressing blindly where the tide willed; on and on through the darkness, with the yellow fog hanging like a solid bank a few feet above his head, as if the rushing of the water were cutting the lower stratum away.

Now a yellow light shone weirdly through the mist, came into sight, and after glowing for a moment on the murky current, died away.

On still, as if it were the tide—that last tide which sweeps away the parting spirit—stroke after stroke, given mechanically; and then there was another light—a dull red light, then an angry glow—a stain as of blood upon the black water; and it, too, died away, but not till it had bathed the upturned face with its crimson hue.

Onward still, the icy water thrilling the swimmer through and through, but seeming to bring with it no dread, no sense of horror, no recollection of the past, no fear of what was to come: the sensation was that he was swimming as one swims without effort in a dream.

A blow from some dark slimy object along whose side he glided, and then on once more.

Another blow against something which checked him for a time, and turned him face downward, so that the thundering recommenced in his ears; there was the sense of strangulation; and then he was steadily swimming on once more, past moored barge with its lights, past steamboat pontoon; and then with a rush he was driven against a stone pier; his hands grasped at the slimy stones without avail, he was turned in an eddy around and around, sucked under, and rose again, to swim on and on, till at last, in the darkness, his hands touched the muddy pebbles of the river shore, his knees struck heavily, and he crawled through a pool, and then staggered to his feet, with the water streaming from him.

————————————————————————————————————

What next? It was all as in a dream, in which, in the gloom of the thick night, he stumbled upon a flight of slippery steps, and walked up and up, and then along a road which he crossed again and again, and always walking on and on.

At times he guided himself by mechanically touching a cold rough stony wall, till somehow it was different and felt slippery, and his hand glided over the side.

Then darkness, and a sense of wandering. How long? Where? Why was he wandering on?

————————————————————————————————————

It was all a dream, but changed to a time when his head was as it were on fire, and he was climbing mountains where diamonds glistened at the top, but which he could not reach, though he was ever climbing, with the sun burning into his brain, and the diamonds that he must find farther and farther away.

And so on, and so on, in one long weary journey, to reach that which he could not attain, and at last oblivion—soft, sweet, restful oblivion— with nothing wrong, nothing a trouble, no weariness or care: it was rest, sweet rest, after that toilsome climb.

The next sensation was of a cool soft hand upon his brow, and Mark Heath opened his eyes, to gaze into those of a pale, grave-looking woman in white, curiously-shaped cap; and she smiled at the look of intelligence in his face as he said softly.

"Who are you?"

"Your nurse," was the reply.

"Nurse?"

One word only, but a chapter in its inquiring tone. "Yes," she said gently; "you have been ill. Don't try to talk. Take this, and lie quite still."

————————————————————————————————————

Another long, dreamy time, during which there were noises about his head—the gentle, pleasant voice of his nurse, and the firm, decisive voice of the doctor. It might have been hours, it might have been days or weeks, he did not know; and then came the morning when he seemed to awaken from a long disturbed sleep, full of terrible dreams, with a full realisation of his position.

He looked about him, and there were people in beds on either side, while a row of windows started from opposite to him, and went on right and left.

At last he saw the face of the woman whom he felt that he had seen leaning over him in his dream.

She came to his bedside.

"Well?" she said, with a pleasant smile.

"Is this a hospital?" he said eagerly.

"Yes."

"And I have met with some accident—hurt?"

"No," was the reply; "not an accident. You have been ill."

"Ill? How came I here?"

He looked wildly in the calm soft face before him, and behind it there seemed to be a dense mental mist which he could not penetrate. There was the nurse; and as he lay, it seemed to him that he could think as far as their presence there, and no further.

"You had better wait till the doctor has been round."

"If you don't tell me what all this means," he said impetuously, "you will make me worse."

She laid her hand upon his forehead, to find that it was perfectly cool, and he caught her fingers in his as she was drawing them away. "Don't keep me in suspense," he said piteously.

"Well, I will tell you. The police brought you here a fortnight ago. They found you lying in a doorway, drenched with water and fast asleep. You were quite delirious, and you have been very ill."

"Ill? Yes, I feel so weak," he muttered, as he struggled to penetrate the mist which seemed to shut him in, till the nurse's next words gave him a clue to the way out.

"We do not even know who you are; only that they suppose you to be a sailor who has just left his ship."

"Heath—Mark Heath," he said quickly.

"Ah! And your friends? We want to communicate with them."

"My friends! No; it would frighten her, poor little girl!"

"The cause for alarm is passed," said the nurse gravely.

"Yes. Ah! I begin to recollect now," he said. "Send to Miss Heath—my sister—19 Upper Brunswick Avenue, Bloomsbury."

"Yes; and now lie still."

The nurse left him, and he lay thinking, and gradually finding in the mist the pieces of the puzzle of his past adventure, till he seemed to have them nearly all there.

Then came the doctor with a few words of encouragement.

"You'll do now," he said. "Narrow escape of losing your hair, young fellow. Next time you come from sea don't touch the drink."

Mark Heath lay back thinking, and with the puzzle pretty well fitted together now all but what had happened since, half wild with exhaustion and excitement, he had taken refuge at Doctor Chartley's.

"Don't touch the drink!" he muttered. "He thinks I have had D.T. Well, I did drink—brandy. I had some. Yes; I remember now—at the doctor's, and—Great Heavens!"

He paused, with his hands pressed to his forehead; and now the light had come back clearly.

He lay waiting till the nurse passed round again, and he signed to her to come to his side.

"You have sent to my sister?"

"Yes; a messenger has been sent."

"My clothes?" he said, in an eager whisper. "Where are they?"

"They have been taken care of quite safely."

"And the bag, and the belt—the cash-belt I had strapped round my waist?"

"I will make inquiries."

The nurse went away, and Mark Heath lay in an agony of spirit which he could hardly control till her return, to announce that he had nothing whatever upon him in the way of bag or money when found by the police.

Mark lay as if stunned till the messenger returned with the intelligence that Miss Heath had left the lodgings indicated; that the people there were new, and could give no information whatever.

"But you have other friends," said the nurse, as she looked down pityingly in the patient's agitated face.

"Yes," he said, "I have friends. Write for me to—"

He paused for a few moments, with a hysterical sob rising to his lips as he recalled how he had struggled to return to her wealthy, and had come back a beggar.

"Yes, to—"

The gently-spoken inquiry roused him, and he went on. "To Miss Richmond—"

"Richmond?" said the nurse, looking up inquiringly as she took down the name in a little memorandum-book.

"Miss Richmond Chartley, 27 Ramillies Street, Queen's Square, Bloomsbury, to beg her to find and send my sister here."

The nurse smiled, and left him to his thoughts, which now came freely enough—too freely to help him to convalescence.

It was late in the evening when the nurse came to announce that there were visitors; and after a few grave firm words, bidding him be calm, she left him, and returned with Janet and Richmond, both trembling and agitated, to grasp his hands, and fight hard against the desire to throw themselves sobbing upon his breast.

The nurse remained, not from curiosity, but to watch over her patient, whom she had literally dragged from the grasp of death, while, after the first loving words, Mark Heath gazed at Richmond in a troubled way, and proceeded to tell of his adventures.

"But did you really bring back a bag of diamonds, Mark, or is it—"

"Fancy," he said bitterly. "No; it is no fancy. I have been delirious, Jenny; but I am sane enough now. I had the bag of diamonds, and over a hundred pounds in gold, in a belt about my waist. Rich, darling, I was silent during these past two years; for I vowed that I would not write again till I could come back to you and say I have fulfilled my promise, and now I have come to you a beggar."

"Yes," said Richmond, laying her hand in his, as an ineffably sweet look of content beamed from her eyes in his, and there was tender yearning love in every tone of her sweet deep voice; "but you have come back alive after we had long mourned you as dead."

"Better that I had been," he said bitterly. "Better that that dark night's work had been completed than I should have come back a beggar."

Janet and Richmond exchanged glances; which with a sick man's suspicion he noted, and his brow contracted.

"They doubt me," he thought.

"But you have come back, Mark. We are young; and there is our life before us. I do not complain," said Richmond gently. "We must wait."

"Wait!" he said bitterly; and he uttered a low groan, which made the nurse approach. "No, no," he said, "I will be quite calm." The nurse drew back.

"Tell me, Mark," said Janet, with her pretty little earnest face puckered up. "Why did you not come straight to me? How stupid? Of course you didn't know where, as you did not get my last letters?"

"No, I have had no letters for a year. How could I, out in that desert?"

"But, Mark, you recollect being pursued by those men!"

"Yes, yes."

"You are sure it was not a dream?"

He looked at her almost fiercely.

"Dream? Could a man dream a thing like that?"

"Don't be cross with me, dear Mark," she said, laying her cheek against his. "It seems so strange, and you have been very, very ill. My own darling brother!"

It was not jealousy, but something very near akin, that troubled Rich as she stood there, with an intense longing to take her friend's place, after the long parting. But there was the recollection that their parting had not been the warm passionate embracing of lovers, only calm and full of the hope of what might be.

Janet continued:

"And you went late at night through a dreadful fog, and took refuge with a friend?"

"Yes," he said, with his features contracting, and a shudder passing through him, as he gazed furtively at Rich.

"And what can you recollect besides? Are you sure you had what you say—diamonds and money?"

"Yes, I am certain."

"I never wore diamonds," said Janet, with her pretty white forehead growing more puckered, "and I don't want any; but after being so poor, and with one's dearest friends so poor, and when it would make every one so happy, I should like you to find them again."

Mark uttered a low groan.

"But tell me, Mark, what else can you recollect?"

"Very little," he said. "It all seems misty; but I recollect drinking something."

"Brandy, Mark?"

"Yes; and afterwards a medicine that was to calm him, for I was half mad with excitement."