the door. Every
step I took sent a thrill of pain through me, for I was as stiff and
sore as though I had been beaten all over with a walking-stick. The
stairs were a bit of a job too, but they managed to get me up somehow
or other, and I found myself in a large sparsely furnished hall lit by
one ill-burning gas jet. There was a door half open on the left, and
through the vacant space I could see the flicker of a freshly lighted
fire.

They helped me inside, where we found the girl Sonia standing beside a
long yellow bath-tub which she had set out on a blanket.

"I thought Mr. Lyndon might like a hot bath," she said. "It won't take
very long to warm up the water."

"Like it!" I echoed gratefully; and then, finding no other words to
express my emotions, I sank down in an easy chair which had been
pushed in front of the fire.

I think the brandy that McMurtrie had given me must have gone to my
head, or perhaps it was merely the sudden sense of warmth and comfort
coming on top of my utter fatigue. Anyhow I know I fell gradually into
a sort of blissful trance, in which things happened to me very much as
they do in a dream.

I have a dim recollection of being helped to pull off my soaked and
filthy clothes, and later on of lying back with indescribable felicity
in a heavenly tub of hot water.

Then I was in bed and somebody was rubbing me, rubbing me all over
with some warm pungent stuff that seemed to take away the pain in my
limbs and leave me just a tingling mass of drowsy contentment.

After that--well, after that I suppose I fell asleep.

* * * * *

I base this last idea upon the fact that the next thing I remember is
hearing some one say in a rather subdued voice: "Don't wake him up.
Let him sleep as long as he likes--it's the best thing for him."

Whereupon, as was only natural, I promptly opened my eyes.

Dr. McMurtrie and the dark girl were standing by my bedside, looking
down at me.

I blinked at them for a moment, wondering in my half-awake state where
the devil I had got to. Then suddenly it all came back to me.

"Well," said the doctor smoothly, "and how is the patient today?"

I stretched myself with some care. I was still pretty stiff, and my
throat felt as if some one had been scraping it with sand-paper, but
all the same I knew that I was better--much better.

"I don't think there's any serious damage," I said hoarsely. "How long
have I been asleep?"

He lo