inutes and I can promise you you would have been too
late," he answered. "I have carried her to her room and placed her upon
her bed. You must remain here and endeavour to prevent any one
suspecting what is the matter. If your medicine proves what I hope, she
should be sleeping quietly in an hour's time, and on the high road to
recovery in two. But remember this, if the people in this house receive
any hint of what she is suffering from they will remove her to the
hospital at once, and in that case, I pledge you my word, she will be
dead before morning."

"You need have no fear on that score," I answered. "They shall hear
nothing from me."

Thereupon he took his departure, and for the next hour I remained where
I was, deriving what satisfaction I could from the assurance he had
given me.

It was quite dark by the time Pharos returned.

"What news do you bring?" I inquired anxiously. "Why do you not tell me
at once how she is? Can you not see how I am suffering?"

"The crisis is past," he replied, "and she will do now. But it was a
very narrow escape. If I had not followed you by the next train, in what
sort of position would you be at this minute?"

"I should not be alive," I answered. "If her life had been taken it
would have killed me."

"You are very easily killed, I have no doubt," was his sneering
rejoinder. "At the same time, take my advice and let this be a lesson to
you not to try escaping from me again. You have been pretty severely
punished. On another occasion your fate may be even worse."

I gazed at him in pretended surprise.

"I do not understand your meaning when you say that I escaped from
you," I said, with an air of innocence that would not have deceived any
one. "Why should I desire to do so? If you refer to my leaving Prague so
suddenly, please remember that I warned you the night before that it
would be necessary for me to leave at once for England. I presume I am
at liberty to act as I please?"

"I am not in the humour just now to argue the question with you," he
answered, "but if you will be advised by me, my dear Forrester, you
will, for the future, consult me with regard to your movements. My ward
has given you her experiences and has told you with what result, she, on
two occasions, attempted to leave me. At your instigation she has tried
a third time, and you see how that attempt has turned out. You little
thought that when you were dining so comfortably in Herr Schuncke's
restaur