le strain. No one could help me here, not even Susan. In all
that most mattered to me, my isolation must from now on be complete.

All else I told them, not omitting my vision--the whole wild story. And,
finally, I had now to add to my devil's list a new misfortune. We had
found poor Miss Goucher's condition much more serious than I had
supposed. Doctor Askew had taken us down in his car, and we were met in
the nondescript lower hall of the boarding-house by his friend, Doctor
Carl--the doctor whom I had sent to Miss Goucher on his advice. Miss
Goucher's heavy chest cold, he at once informed us, had taken a graver
turn; double pneumonia had declared itself. Her fever was high and she
had lately grown delirious; he had put a trained nurse in charge. The
crisis of the disease would probably be passed during the next twelve
hours; he was doing everything possible; he hoped for the best.

Susan, very white, motionless, had heard him out. "If Sister dies," she
had said quietly when he ended, "I shall have killed her." Then she had
run swiftly up the stairs and the two doctors had followed her. I had
remained below and had not again seen her; but Doctor Askew had returned
within ten minutes, shaking his head.

"No one can say what will happen," I had finally wrested from him. "One
way or the other now, it's the flip of a coin. Carl's doing his
best--that is, nothing, since there's nothing to do. I've warned him to
keep an eye on the little lady. I'll look in again after dinner.
Good-by. Better find a room and get some sleep if you can."

There was little doubt that Miss Goucher's turn for the worse had come
as the result of Susan's disturbing all-night absence. Susan had made
her comfortable and left her in bed, promising to be home before twelve.
Miss Goucher had fallen asleep about eleven and had not waked until two.
The light she had left for Susan had not been switched off, and Susan's
bed, which stood beside her own, was unoccupied. Feverish from her
bronchial cold, she was at once greatly alarmed, and sprang from her bed
to go into the sitting-room, half hoping to find Susan there and scold
her a little for remaining up so late over her work. She did not even
stop to put on a dressing-gown or find her slippers. All this Susan
later learned from her red-eyed landlady, Miss O'Neill, whose own
bedroom, as it happened, was just beside their own. Miss O'Neill, a
meritorious if tiresome spinster of no particular age, had at