s this
here's done me a'ready. Didn't know you was a doctor."

"Here's a crown for you," said Chester, taking the money from a little
drawer.

"Five bob! Oh, thank ye, sir," said the man, with a grin. "Makes a
fellow feel quite dry. Sorry for your carpet, sir. Good-mornin'. I
don't think I want another fare."

As the door was closed after the man, the potent drops Chester had taken
began to have some effect, and it seemed as if the dawn was coming
through the black cloud which separated him mentally from what had taken
place overnight.

"The man's right," he muttered. "I must sleep. Good heavens! What a
state my brain is in!"

"Is that you, Fred?"

He started as if he had been stung, and the dawn brightened as he
replied sharply--

"Yes, aunt; all right. Go to bed. Why are you up?"

There was no reply, and he turned the hall light nearly out again, and
went into his consulting-room to serve the gas jet there the same, and
sank into an easy-chair instead; but he had hardly allowed himself to
sink back when he sprang up again, for there, in the open doorway, stood
the grotesque figure of Aunt Grace, in broad-frilled, old-fashioned
night-cap and dressing-gown, a flat candlestick in her hand, and a
portentous frown upon her brow, as she walked straight to him, wincing
sharply as one slippered foot was planted in the pool left by the
cabman, but continuing her slow, important march till she was about a
yard away from her nephew, when she stopped.

"Why, aunt," he cried, "what's the matter? Surely you are not walking
in your sleep!"

"Matter?" she cried in a low, deep voice, full of the emotion which
nearly choked her. "Oh, you vile, wicked, degraded boy! How dare you
treat your poor sister and me like this?"

"Pooh! Hush! Nonsense, old lady. It's all right. I've been dining
with a friend."

"With a friend!" she said, with cutting sarcasm.

"Yes, at his club. There, I must have been unwell. I was a little
overdone. What a terrible night."

"Terrible indeed, sir, when my nephew stoops to lie to me like that. A
friend--at his club! Do you think me such a baby that I do not know you
have been with that abandoned woman?"

"Hush! Silence!" he whispered angrily. "For your dear, dead father's
and mother's sake, sir, I will not be silenced."

"But you will arouse Laura."

"She wants no arousing. She is lying ill in bed, sleepless in her
misery, sir, with her wretched brother staying o