ene is
not one I recall with pride, but my brief excuse must be that I do not
like to have my undertakings fail. The delicacies of the best of us,
moreover, depart at critical junctures.

However that may be, the important point is that finally I felt her
struggles subside. Her hands no longer acted with intelligence; they
moved about wildly in front of her face, as if to push away a tangle of
cobwebs. Her head rolled to and fro; the gurglings, sputters,
half-uttered cries of rage, ceased.

"Breathe again!" said I, with the habitual phrase of the surgeon
administering an anaesthetic. "Breathe away--breathe away--Ah,
now!--breathe--breathe--breathe!"

And at last she was still. I threw the gauze into the corner. I got up
panting, for I am not built for exercise, and, panting still, I peeped
out through the silk curtains to be sure that in our little adventure we
had attracted no attention.

The wind-driven rain still swept down the streets under the iridescent
glows of the arc lights, my car still stood like a forlorn, forgotten
thing in the gutter. In one direction the wet perspective of the avenue
appeared as empty as a street scene on a drop curtain. But when I turned
my eyes the other way my heart gave quick response. Just beyond the iron
fence stood a patrolman.

He had stopped and seemed to be looking directly at the door behind
which I stood. I could see his two bare hands on the iron railing. They
were very conspicuous against the rubber coat--wet, black, and
shiny--which covered his burly figure, and he used them to sway himself
softly backward and forward. It seemed to me that he was debating how to
act, and I believe that I learned then, peeping through the glass, to
what extent guilt and the desire for secrecy will sharpen the
imagination.

I say this, because, almost at the moment that I felt sure he had taken
a step forward toward me, I saw that not his face but his back was
turned toward me, that his hands were behind him and that he had leaned
for a moment on the rail, perhaps to look at the physician's green cross
on my lights. A second later he ducked his helmet into the driving rain
and, walking on, turned into the shadows of the cross-street.

I knew then I had no time to lose. I had been delayed; Margaret Murchie
might regain her senses. And yet, when I had signaled to Estabrook, when
he, without a word, had come, and when I felt the excitement most
keenly, I found myself impressed not with