into the broad corridor which ran through the spacious old house; but at the foot of the staircase the master of the house hung back.

“I don’t think I’ll go up with you,” he exclaimed. “I’ll wait in my study, Maclean. I can’t do any good up there, and it unnerves me to see Emily suffer.”

“All right!” cried the doctor hastily; and he hastened on, familiar with every inch of the way, till he reached the upstairs corridor, which, unlike the lower part of the house, was brilliantly lighted.

All at once he started back—for from behind a big wardrobe there had suddenly emerged an odd-looking figure clad in a drab-coloured ulster.

“It’s only me, sir.” The reassuring words were uttered in a frightened whisper; and with astonishment Dr. Maclean recognized Lucy Warren, the pretty parlour-maid who had got into such trouble the night before.

“Mrs. Garlett’s been moaning something awful,” she murmured, “but she’s left off now. You won’t tell her that you’ve seen me, sir, will you?”

“Not if you’ll go straight back to bed!”

The little incident made an unpleasant impression on the doctor. He told himself that the young woman might at least have gone and seen if she could do anything to help relieve her sick mistress.

And then, as he approached his patient’s room, Dr. Maclean half-unconsciously slackened his footsteps and listened.

But no sound fell on his ear; indeed the silence brooding over the brilliantly lit corridor seemed almost uncanny.

Yet the bedroom door was ajar, and, hearing his footsteps, 35Agatha Cheale opened the door wide, and came out into the passage, a finger to her lips.

35

She was dressed in a big white coverall. It accentuated the intense pallor of her face and made her slender figure look thicker than usual.

“Mrs. Garlett is asleep now,” she whispered, “but she’s been in awful pain, and I’m sorry I didn’t send for you before. I’ve always been able to manage her in her previous night attacks, but this time she’s been really very bad! I do hope—oh, I do hope, Dr. Maclean, that you won’t think I was to blame not to send for you at once?”

She was so unlike her usual quiet sensible self that the doctor felt alarmed, in 

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