best for him. He looked at me very affectionately. "I'm so sorry that this should happen on your wedding-day," he said. "But it would have been so much worse for you if she had not helped." His voice grew fainter and died away. There was a pause for a time, and his breath came in great sighing sobs. Then suddenly he raised himself on the cushions until he stood upright on his feet, and a smile broke over his face--a smile so sweet that I think the angels in Paradise must look like that. His voice came strong and loud from his lips. "Darling!" he cried. "Darling, your arms are round me once again! I come! I come!"  One of the most extraordinary cases I have ever met with," the doctor told the coroner at the inquest. "He seemed to have all the symptoms of excessive hæmorrhage." II THE TOMTOM CLUE I had just settled down for a comfortable evening over the fire in a saddle-bag chair drawn up as close to the hearth as the fender would allow, with a plentiful supply of literature and whisky, and pipe and tobacco, when the telephone bell rang loudly and insistently. With a sigh I rose and took up the receiver. "That you?" said a voice I recognised as that of Jack Bridges. "Can I come round and see you at once? It's most important. No, I can't tell you now. I'll be with you in a few minutes." I hung the receiver up again, wondering what business could fetch Jack Bridges round at that time of the evening to see me. We had been the greatest of pals at school and at the 'Varsity, and had kept the friendship up ever since, despite my intermittent wanderings over the face of the globe. But during the last few days or so Jack had become engaged to Miss Glanville, the daughter of old Glanville, of South African fame, and as a love-sick swain I naturally expected to see very little of him, until after the wedding at any rate. At this time of the evening, according to my ideas of engaged couples, he should be sitting in the stalls at some theatre, and not running round to see bachelor friends with cynical views on matrimony. I had not arrived at a satisfactory solution when the door opened and Jack walked in. One glance at his face told me that he was in trouble, and without a word I pushed him into my chair and handed him a drink. Then I sat down on the opposite side of the fire and waited for him to begin, for a man in need of sympathy does not want to be worried by questions. He gulped down half his whisky and sat for a moment gazing into the fire. "Jim, old man," he said at length, "I've had awful news." "Not connected with Miss Glanville?" I asked. "In a way, yes. It's broken off, but there's worse than that--far worse. I can hardly realise it; I feel numbed at present; it's too horrible. You remember that when you and I were at Winchester together my father 

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