door hurriedly,
and stated the case, and the two men carried the little unconscious
creature upstairs. Then Von Rosen came down, leaving the doctor and
Martha with her. He waited in the study, listening to the sounds
overhead, waiting impatiently for the doctor's return, which was not
for half an hour or more. In the meantime Martha came downstairs on
some errand to the kitchen. Von Rosen intercepted her. "What does
Doctor Sturtevant think?" he asked.

"Dunno, what he thinks," replied Martha brusquely, pushing past him.

"Is she conscious yet?"

"Dunno, I ain't got any time to talk," said Martha, casting a flaming
look at him over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen.

Von Rosen retreated to the study, where he was presently joined by
the doctor. "What is it?" asked Von Rosen with an emphasis, which
rendered it so suspicious that he might have added: "what the devil
is it?" had it not been for his profession.

Sturtevant answered noiselessly, the motion of his lips conveying his
meaning. Then he said, shrugging himself into his fur coat, as he
spoke, "I have to rush my motor to see a patient, whom I dare not
leave another moment, then I will be back."

Von Rosen's great Persian cat had curled himself on the doctor's fur
coat, and now shaken off, sat with a languid dignity, his great
yellow plume of a tail waving, and his eyes like topazes fixed
intently upon Sturtevant. At that moment a little cry was heard from
the guest room, a cry between a moan and a scream, but unmistakably a
note of suffering. Sturtevant jammed his fur cap upon his head and
pulled on his gloves.

"Don't go," pleaded Von Rosen in a sudden terror of helplessness.

"I must, but I'll break the speed laws and be back before you know
it. That housekeeper of yours is as good as any trained nurse, and
better. She is as hard as nails, but she does her duty like a
machine, and she has brains. I will be back in a few minutes."

Then Sturtevant was gone, and Von Rosen sat again before his study
fire. There was another little note of suffering from above. Von
Rosen shuddered, rose, and closed his door. The Persian cat came and
sat in front of him, and gazed at him with jewel-like eyes. There was
an expression of almost human anxiety and curiosity upon the animal's
face. He came from a highly developed race; he and his forbears had
always been with humans. At times it seemed to Von Rosen as if the
cat had a dumb knowledge of the most that he himse