oor of the house
and up the staircase to the second-floor front room from which the signal
proceeded.

A very old lady sat in a chair by the open window, and close to her, laid
across a second chair, was a cylinder of oxygen, smaller but of the same
shape as those which had saved our own lives. She turned her thin,
drawn, bespectacled face toward us as we crowded in at the doorway.

"I feared that I was abandoned here forever," said she, "for I am an
invalid and cannot stir."

"Well, madam," Challenger answered, "it is a lucky chance that we
happened to pass."

"I have one all-important question to ask you," said she. "Gentlemen, I
beg that you will be frank with me. What effect will these events have
upon London and North-Western Railway shares?"

We should have laughed had it not been for the tragic eagerness with
which she listened for our answer. Mrs. Burston, for that was her name,
was an aged widow, whose whole income depended upon a small holding of
this stock. Her life had been regulated by the rise and fall of the
dividend, and she could form no conception of existence save as it was
affected by the quotation of her shares. In vain we pointed out to her
that all the money in the world was hers for the taking and was useless
when taken. Her old mind would not adapt itself to the new idea, and she
wept loudly over her vanished stock. "It was all I had," she wailed.
"If that is gone I may as well go too."

Amid her lamentations we found out how this frail old plant had lived
where the whole great forest had fallen. She was a confirmed invalid and
an asthmatic. Oxygen had been prescribed for her malady, and a tube was
in her room at the moment of the crisis. She had naturally inhaled some
as had been her habit when there was a difficulty with her breathing. It
had given her relief, and by doling out her supply she had managed to
survive the night. Finally she had fallen asleep and been awakened by
the buzz of our motor-car. As it was impossible to take her on with us,
we saw that she had all necessaries of life and promised to communicate
with her in a couple of days at the latest. So we left her, still
weeping bitterly over her vanished stock.

As we approached the Thames the block in the streets became thicker and
the obstacles more bewildering. It was with difficulty that we made our
way across London Bridge. The approaches to it upon the Middlesex side
were choked from end to end with f