ngarth. At present he is suffering from very
severe concussion. I hope there is not actual brain lesion--but there may
be. And, if so, to move him now would be simply to destroy his chance of
recovery."

The two men confronted each other, the unreasonable fury of the one met
by the scientific conscience of the other. Melrose was dumfounded by the
mingled steadiness and audacity of the little doctor. His mad self-will,
his pride of class and wealth, surviving through all his eccentricities,
found it unbearable that Undershaw should show no real compunction
whatever for what he had done, nay, rather, a quiet conviction that, rage
as he might, the owner of Threlfall Tower would have to submit. It was
indeed the suggestion in the doctor's manner, of an unexplained
compulsion behind--ethical or humanitarian--not to be explained, but
simply to be taken for granted, which perhaps infuriated Melrose more
than anything else.

Nevertheless, as he still glared at his enemy, Melrose suddenly realized
that the man was right. He would have to submit. For many reasons, he
could not--at this moment in particular--excite any fresh hue and cry
which might bring the whole countryside on his back. Unless the doctor
were lying, and he could get another of the craft to certify it, he would
have to put up--for the very minimum of time--with the intolerable plague
of this invasion.

He turned away abruptly, took a turn up and down the only free space the
room contained, and returned.

"Perhaps you will kindly inform me, sir--since you have been good
enough to take this philanthropic business on yourself--or rather to
shovel it on to me"--each sarcastic word was flung like a javelin at
the doctor--"whether you know anything whatever of this youth you are
thrusting upon me? I don't imagine that he has dropped from the skies! If
you don't know, and haven't troubled yourself to find out, I shall set
the police on at once, track his friends, and hand him over!"

Undershaw was at once all civility and alacrity.

"I have already made some inquiries at Keswick, Mr. Melrose, where I was
this morning. He was staying, it appears, with some friends at the
Victoria Hotel--a Mr. and Mrs. Ransom, Americans. The hotel people
thought that he had been to meet them at Liverpool, had taken them
through the Lakes, and had then seen them off for the south. He himself
was on his way to Scotland to fish. He had sent his luggage to Pengarth
by rail, and chose t