"Perhaps you may wonder why I have not sent at once, in the ordinary course, for a doctor," he went on. "That is quite easily explained when I tell you that I am a doctor myself. The situation is absurd, of course. Perhaps I had better introduce myself. I am Dr. Bardolph Just." He paused, as though expecting that I should supply information on my side.

"My name is Norton Hyde," I said brusquely.

"And you speak like a gentleman, which is a passport at once to my favour," he assured me, with a bow. "Now, let us get to business. A young man comes here to-night and hangs himself in my house. I have a deep respect and liking for that young man, although I am opposed to the idea of his aspiring to the hand of my ward. He hangs himself, and at once scandal springs up, bell-mouthed, to shout the thing to the world. The name of an innocent girl is dragged in; my name is dragged in; innocent people suffer for the foolish act of a thoughtless boy. The question in my mind at once is: Can the penalty be averted from us?"

I must own the man fascinated me. I began to feel that I would do much to help him, and to help the girl I had seen that night in the grounds of the house. Fool that I was then, I did not understand and did not know what deep game he was playing; indeed, had I known, how could I have stood against him?

"I am, I trust, always a friend to the friendless and the helpless," he went on. "You are friendless, I take it, and very helpless, and although I am no opponent of the law, I have yet the instinct which tells me that I should help a fugitive. Now let us understand one another."

At this point we were interrupted, horribly enough, by a cry from the old man in the corner—a cry like nothing earthly. He advanced a few steps towards where we stood, and looked from one to the other of us, with his hands plucking nervously at his lips.

"I don't understand, gentlemen—I don't understand," he said, in a feeble voice. "He was alive and well and strong this morning; he clapped me on the shoulder, and said—what was it that he said?" The man put one hand to his head and looked at me in a lost fashion. "I forget what it was; something seems to have gone here!" He struck his forehead sharply with his knuckles, and again looked at us with that feeble smile.

"Get out of the way!" said Dr. Just fiercely. "Take no notice of him," he added to me. "He babbles about things he doesn't understand."

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