how much he might hope to
learn from him respecting the affairs of Sir Charles. It seemed almost
impertinent at that hour to seek to pry into the dead man's private
life.

To the quiet, book-lined apartment stole now and again little
significant sounds which told of the tragedy in the household. Sometimes
when a distant door was opened, it would be the sobs of a weeping woman,
for the poor old housekeeper had been quite prostrated by the blow. Or
ghostly movements would become audible from the room immediately over
the library--the room to which the dead man had been carried; muffled
footsteps, vague stirrings of furniture; each sound laden with its own
peculiar portent, awakening the imagination which all too readily filled
in the details of the scene above. Then, to spur Harley to action, came
the thought that Sir Charles Abingdon had appealed to him for aid. Did
his need terminate with his unexpected death or would the shadow under
which he had died extend now? Harley found himself staring across the
library at the photograph of Phil Abingdon. It was of her that Sir
Charles had been speaking when that mysterious seizure had tied his
tongue. That strange, fatal illness, mused Harley, all the more strange
in the case of a man supposedly in robust health--it almost seemed
like the working of a malignant will. For the revelation, whatever
its nature, had almost but not quite been made in Harley's office that
evening. Something, some embarrassment or mental disability, had stopped
Sir Charles from completing his statement. Tonight death had stopped
him.

"Was he consulting you professionally, Mr. Harley?" asked the physician.

"He was," replied Harley, continuing to stare fascinatedly at the
photograph on the mantelpiece. "I am informed," said he, abruptly, "that
Miss Abingdon is out of town?"

Doctor McMurdoch nodded in his slow, gloomy fashion. "She is staying in
Devonshire with poor Abingdon's sister," he answered. "I am wondering
how we are going to break the news to her."

Perceiving that Doctor McMurdoch had clearly been intimate with the
late Sir Charles, Harley determined to make use of this opportunity to
endeavour to fathom the mystery of the late surgeon's fears. "You will
not misunderstand me, Doctor McMurdoch," he said, "if I venture to ask
you one or two rather personal questions respecting Miss Abingdon?"

Doctor McMurdoch lowered his shaggy brows and looked gloomily at the
speaker. "Mr. Harley," he