lly, "Mrs. Ralston has swallowed some of
it."

Kennedy seemed so intent on Vanderdyke that I had to repeat the remark.

Without looking up, he said: "Oh, one can swallow it--it's strange,
but it is comparatively inert if swallowed even in a pretty good-sized
quantity. I doubt if Mrs. Ralston ever heard of it before except by
hearsay. If she had, she'd have scratched herself with it instead of
swallowing it."

If Craig had been indifferent to the emergency of Vanderdyke before,
he was all action now that the confession had been made. In an instant
Vanderdyke was stretched on the floor and Craig had taken out the
apparatus I had seen during the afternoon.

"I am prepared for this," he exclaimed quickly. "Here is the apparatus
for artificial respiration. Nott, hold that rubber funnel over his nose,
and start the oxygen from the tank. Pull his tongue forward so it won't
fall down his throat and choke him. I'll work his arms. Walter, make a
tourniquet of your handkerchief and put it tightly on the muscles of
his left arm. That may keep some of the poison in his arm from spreading
into the rest of his body. This is the only antidote known--artificial
respiration."

Kennedy was working feverishly, going through the motions of first
aid to a drowned man. Mrs. Ralston was on her knees beside Vanderdyke,
kissing his hands and forehead whenever Kennedy stopped for a minute,
and crying softly.

"Schuyler, poor boy, I wonder how you could have done it. I was with him
that day. We rode up in his car, and as we passed through Williston he
said he would stop a minute and wish Templeton luck. I didn't think it
strange, for he said he had nothing any longer against Laura Wainwright,
and Templeton only did his duty as a lawyer against us. I forgave John
for prosecuting us, but Schuyler didn't, after all. Oh, my poor boy, why
did you do it? We could have gone somewhere else and started all over
again--it wouldn't have been the first time."

At last came the flutter of an eyelid and a voluntary breath or two.
Vanderdyke seemed to realise where he was. With a last supreme effort he
raised his hand and drew it slowly across his face. Then he fell back,
exhausted by the effort.

But he had at last put himself beyond the reach of the law. There was no
tourniquet that would confine the poison now in the scratch across his
face. Back of those lack-lustre eyes he heard and knew, but could not
move or speak. His voice was gone, his limbs,