sound of steps upon the stairs, every nerve on the strain, as he
wondered at the patience with which the two men waited.

At last, with his heart throbbing painfully, Chester heard a faint
rustling sound outside, and the front door close, just as the inspector
broke the silence.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but this is a case of emergency. I should
be glad if you can come at once."

"Come at once?"

"Yes," said the inspector, coolly. "Only in the next street. Case of
attempted suicide. Doctor with the party wants a second opinion."

Chester drew a deep breath, wrote another line of incoherent words, and
then, having hard work to speak composedly, he rose and said--

"I am at your service now."

He followed the inspector to the door, and feeling half stunned at what
seemed like so strange an escape, he went to the house where, in a mad
fit, the occupant had taken desperate measures to rid himself of a life
which had grown hateful; and while Chester aided his colleagues for the
next hour in the difficult task of trying to combat the poison taken, he
could not help feeling that this might have been his own case if matters
had gone otherwise, for despair would have prompted him also to take a
life that had become horrible--an existence that he could not have
borne.

He went back home at last, but he made no attempt to see sister or aunt,
his anger for the time being was too hot against them, and he was in no
disposition to make any excuse. His next step was, he felt, to set
Marion's mind at rest regarding the police, and he was about to start
for Isabel's temporary London home, when he hesitated, shrinking from
meeting her again. He felt that his position was despicable, and now
the danger was past he mentally writhed at the obligation which he had
so eagerly embraced.

"What a poor, pitiful, contemptible object I must seem in her eyes," he
muttered as he paced the room.

But he grew cooler after a time. Marion's happiness must stand first.
She was prostrate with horror and despair, and at any cost he felt that
he must preserve her from danger, and set her mind at rest.

"But I cannot go," he muttered--"I cannot face her again." Then, half
mad with himself for his miserable cowardice, he cast aside the pen with
which he was about to write, and determined to go.

"She will forgive me," he said; and he hurried into the hall, took up
his hat, and then stopped short, aghast at his helplessness.

Where