ntle movement, and slowly and smoothly he began to glide
past those home-going lights. In a moment more he was speeding
eastward into the white night.

When he reached Montreal he went immediately to the hotel. He was to
meet Mr. Graham and the head of the firm there that evening, when
everything regarding his immediate duties was to be settled. He
registered, and found a room awaiting him, a luxurious room, finer than
any he could afford. It was the beginning of his new life. He went
down to breakfast, but could eat nothing, for the pain in his arm. He
was not at all averse to obeying Dr. Blair's injunction, and as soon as
he went back to his room, he telephoned the doctor whose address he had
been given. He felt a strange dizziness and, fearing to go out, he
asked if the doctor would call. When Roderick gave the name of the
firm he represented, there was an immediate rise in the temperature at
the other end of the telephone. Evidently the young lady in charge of
Doctor Nicholls's office knew her business. All uncertainty as to the
physician's movements immediately vanished.

Doctor Nicholls would call in the course of half an hour if convenient
to Mr. McRae, he was just about to visit the Bellevue House in any case.

Roderick felt again the advantages of his new position. The sensation
of power was very pleasant, but it could not keep his arm from aching.
The pain grew steadily worse, until at last he lay on the bed waiting
impatiently.

In a short time there came a tap on the door. Thinking it was the
doctor, Roderick sprang up relieved. But it was only the boy in
buttons with a telegram. He signed the paper indifferently. Even the
most urgent business of Elliot & Kent could not arouse his interest, he
was feeling so sick and miserable and down-hearted. He opened the
yellow paper slowly, and then sprang up with a cry that made the boy
stop in the hall and listen. Roderick stood in the middle of the room
reading the terse message again and again:

"Father ill. Come at once." E. L. Brians.

He leaped to the telephone, then dropped the receiver at the sight of a
railway guide he had left upon the table. The first train he could
take for home left at fifteen minutes past three in the afternoon. And
it was not yet ten o'clock! He sat down on the bed, a dread fear
possessing his soul. Wild surmises rushed through his mind. What
could have happened? It was not twenty-four hours since he had see