ain," he said. "But I must first get well."

He had heard that the doctor was ill, but everything else had been kept
from him, till one evening, as he was seated by the fire at Janet's neat
little lodgings, and his sister was called down to see a visitor.

She had a suspicion of who it was, and found Richmond waiting.

"Come up and see him."

Richmond hesitated.

"I must not stay long," she said. "My father frets for me if I am
away."

"And I am situated almost the same. Mark does not like to be left.
Come up, dear, and help me to persuade him that he ought to employ the
police."

"No, no! don't talk of them," said Richmond, with a shudder. "I want
the horror at our house forgotten, and they keep reminding me that the
law does not sleep."

"Why, Rich, how strangely you talk!"

"Strangely, dear! No. Only it comes back like a nightmare ever since
that terrible affair, so soon as it is mentioned. I seem to be
wandering about the house in misery, fever, and pain, trying to see
through a mist that I cannot penetrate. I don't know how it is or what
it means, but I have this horrible thought troubling me, that I came
down that night to go to the surgery, and that I saw something."

"Saw something! Saw what?"

"Ah! that is what I cannot tell," said Rich with a shudder. "I was
better this morning, and more hopeful. My poor father seemed a little
clearer in his mind, but the past is all a blank to him."

"He knew me, dear, when I came yesterday."

"Oh, yes! and he knows me well enough. He talks sensibly about what is
going on around him. But that night when he was struck down, the blows
seemed to break away the connection between the present and the past.
The physician, who has seen him, says very little, but I can see that he
considers the case hopeless."

"Oh, don't say that, dear! We must all hope. I hope to be something
better some day than a poor teacher. Come up now, and help me to
persuade Mark to have in the police."

"No, no!" cried Rich hastily.

"Why not, dear? Think what it means if it is true about the diamonds,
and we could get them back."

"But it cannot be true, Janet; and as to the police, they make me
shudder. They were at our house this morning to see Hendon, and with
him my father, to try whether they could revive his memory, and get hold
of a clue to those men who came to our house that night, and they have
found out nothing. They say they are straining every nerve now