This man was followed by old Madam
Decker's daughter, who was weeping.

"She died at six o'clock, Dr. Halt," Miss Decker sobbed, "at six
precisely, for I noticed. We didn't expect it so soon."

"Nor I, either," said Halt, soothingly, "I did not anticipate"--

"Dead!" I cried. "Mrs. Decker dead? I did my best--I have met with an
accident. I could not come till now. Did she ask for me?"

"She talked of Dr. Thorne," sobbed Miss Decker, "as long as she could
talk of anything. She wondered if he knew, she said, how sick she was."

I hastened to explain, to protest, to sympathize, to say the idle words
with which we waste ourselves and weary mourners, at such times; but
the daughter paid little attention to me. She was evidently hurt at my
delay; and, thinking it best to spare her my presence, I bowed my head
in silence, and left the house.

Halt followed me, and we stood together for a moment outside, where his
carriage and driver awaited him.

"Was she conscious to the end?" I asked.

"Yes," he murmured. "Yes, yes, yes. It is a pity. I'm sorry for that
girl."

Nodding shortly in my direction, he sprang into his coupe, and drove
away.

I had now begun to be very restless to get home. It seemed suddenly
important to see Helen. I felt, I knew not why, uneasy and impatient,
and turned my steps toward town.

"But I must stop at Brake's," I thought. This seemed imperative; so
much so that I went out of my course a little, to reach his house, a
pretty, suburban place. I remember passing under trees; and the depth
of their shadow; it seemed like a bay of blackness into which the night
flowed. I looked up through it at the sky; stars showed through the
massed clouds which the wind whipped along like a flock of titanic
celestial creatures. I had not looked up before, since the accident.
The act gave me strange sensations, as if the sky had lowered, or I had
risen; the sense of having lost the usual scale of measurement. This
reminded me that I was still not altogether right.

"I have really hurt my head," I thought, "I ought to get home. I must
hurry this business with Brake. I must get to Helen."

But Brake was not at home. As I went up the steps, his servant was
ushering out some one, to whom I heard the man say that Mr. Brake had
left word not to expect him to-night.

"Does he ever stay late at the office?" I asked, thinking that the
panic might render this possibly.

The man turned the expre