ess was it now, when everything he would say could be put to the
credit of his injury and to his delirium! He could not even give
orders for the safeguarding of the house and its contents--his own
property--with assurance that they would be carried out.

The police and hospital attendants, he had learned, had no suspicion of
anything but that he had been the victim of one of the footpads who,
during that month, had been attacking and robbing nightly. Sherrill,
who had visited him about two o'clock, had showed that he suspected no
other possibility. Alan could not prove otherwise; he had not seen his
assailant's face; it was most probable that if he had seen it, he would
not have recognized it. But the man who had assailed him had meant to
kill; he had not been any ordinary robber. That purpose, blindly
recognized and fought against by Alan in their struggle, had been
unmistakable. Only the chance presence of passers-by, who had heard
Alan's shouts and responded to them, had prevented the execution of his
purpose, and had driven the man to swift flight for his own safety.

Alan had believed, in his struggle with Spearman in Corvet's library,
that Spearman might have killed rather than have been discovered there.
Were there others to whom Alan's presence had become a threat so
serious that they would proceed even to the length of calculated
murder? He could not know that. The only safe plan was to assume that
persons, in number unknown, had definite, vital interest in his
"removal" by violence or otherwise, and that, among them, he must
reckon Henry Spearman; and he must fight them alone. For Sherrill's
liking for him, even Constance Sherrill's interest and sympathy were
nullified in practical intent by their admiration for and their
complete confidence in Spearman. It did not matter that Alan might
believe that, in fighting Spearman, he was fighting not only for
himself but for her; he knew now certainly that he must count her as
Spearman's; her! Things swam before him again dizzily as he thought of
her; and he sank back and closed his eyes.

A little before six Constance Sherrill and Spearman called to inquire
after him and were admitted for a few moments to his room. She came to
him, bent over him, while she spoke the few words of sympathy the nurse
allowed to her; she stood back then while Spearman spoke to him. In
the succeeding days, he saw her nearly every day, accompanied always by
her father or Spe