oked out, biting
the pen. 'What am I to do?' she whispered, in terror. 'What am I to do?'
Then she saw Ethel running hard down the drive to the front door.

'Oh, mother!' The pale girl burst into the room. 'Father's done
something to himself. Fred's come up. They're bringing him.'

* * * * *

John Stanway had called at the chemist's in the Market Place and had
given a circumstantial description of an accident to Bran. It appeared
that while Carpenter was washing the waggonette, Bran being loose in the
stable-yard, the groom had suddenly slipped the lever of the
carriage-jack and the off hind wheel had caught Bran's hind leg and
snapped it like a piece of wood. The chemist had suggested prussic acid,
and John had laughingly answered that perhaps the chemist would be good
enough to come up and show them how to administer prussic acid to a dog
of Bran's size in great pain. John explained that the animal was now
fast by the collar, and he had demanded a large dose of morphia,
together with a hypodermic instrument. Having obtained these, and
precise instructions for their use, John had hurried away. It was not
till three hours had elapsed that a startling suspicion had disturbed
the chemist's easy mind. By that time, his preparations completed, John
had dropped unconscious from the arm-chair in his office at the works,
and Bursley was provided with one of those morbid sensations which more
than joy or triumph electrify the stagnant pulses of a provincial town.
Scores of persons followed the cab which conveyed Stanway from the works
to his house; and on the route most of the inhabitants seemed to know in
advance, by some strange intuition, that the vehicle was coming, and at
their windows or at their gates (according to social status) they stood
ready to watch it pass. And even after John had entered his home and had
been carried upstairs, and the cab and the policeman had gone, and the
doctor had gone, and Fred Ryley and Mr. Mayer, the works manager, had
gone, a crowd still remained on the footpath, staring at the gravelled
drive and at the front door, silent, patient, implacable.

The doctor had tried hot coffee, artificial respiration, and other
remedies, but without the least success, and he had reluctantly
departed, solemn for once, leaving four women to understand that there
was nothing to do save to wait for the final sigh. The inactivity was
dreadful for them. They could only look at