amund wants me."

"That's always understood."

The cab drove away, and the great lawyer was left to think of his case
under the stars.

When the cab turned the corner of Great Market Street, Westminster, and
came into Little Market Street, Dion saw in the distance before him two
large, staring yellow eyes, which seemed to be steadily regarding
him like the eyes of something on the watch. They were the lamps of a
brougham drawn up in front of No. 5. Dion's cabman, perforce, pulled up
short before the brown door of No. 4.

"A carriage in front of my house at this time of night!" thought Dion,
as he got out and paid the man.

He looked at the coachman and at the solemn brown horse between the
shafts, and instantly realized that this was the carriage of a doctor.

"Rosamund!"

With a thrill of anxiety, a clutch at his heart, he thrust his latchkey
into the door. It stuck; he could not turn it. This had never happened
before. He tried, with force, to pull the key out. It would not move.
He shook it. The doctor's coachman, he felt, was staring at him from
the box of the brougham. As he struggled impotently with the key his
shoulders began to tingle, and a wave of acute irritation flooded him.
He turned sharply round and met the coachman's eyes, shrewd, observant,
lit, he thought, by a flickering of sarcasm.

"Has the doctor been here long?" said Dion.

"Sir?"

"This is a doctor's carriage, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. Doctor Mayson."

"Well, I say, has he been here long?"

"About an hour, sir, or a little more."

"Thanks."

Dion turned again and assaulted the latchkey.

But he had to ring the bell to get in. When the maid came, looking
excited, he said:

"I don't know what on earth's the matter with this key. I can't either
turn it or get it out."

"No, sir?"

The girl put her hand to the key, and without any difficulty drew it out
of the door.

"I don't know--I couldn't!"

The girl shut the door.

"What's the matter? Why's the doctor here? It isn't----?"

"Yes, sir," said the girl, with a sort of intensely feminine
significance. "It came on quite sudden."

"How long ago?"

"A good while, sir. I couldn't say exactly."

"But why wasn't I sent for?"

"My mistress wouldn't have you sent for, sir. Besides, we were expecting
you every moment."

"Ah! and I--and now it's past midnight."

He had quickly taken off his coat, hat and gloves. Now he ran up the
shallow steps of the staircase. There was