curiously. "Poor man," she exclaimed, "he must be starving!"

"My dear Sonia," said McMurtrie, "you reflect upon my hospitality. Mr.
Lyndon has been faring sumptuously on bread and milk."

"But he looks so wet and ill."

"He is wet and ill," rejoined the doctor agreeably. "That is just the reason why I am going to ask you to heat some water and light a fire in the spare bedroom. We don't want to disturb Mrs. Weston at this time of night. I suppose the bed is made up?"

Sonia nodded. "I think so. I'll go up and see anyhow."

With a last glance at me she left the room, and Savaroff, taking off his coat, threw it across the back of a chair. Then he came up to where I was sitting.

"You don't look much like your pictures, my friend," he said, unwinding the scarf that he was wearing round his neck.

"Under the circumstances," I replied, "that's just as well."

He laughed again, showing a set of strong white teeth. "Yes, yes. But the clothes and the short hair—eh? They would take a lot of explaining away. It was fortunate for you you chose this house—very fortunate. You find yourself amongst friends here."

I nodded.

I didn't like the man—there was too great a suggestion of the bully about him, but for all that I preferred him to McMurtrie.

It was the latter who interrupted. "Come, Savaroff, you take Mr. Lyndon's other arm and we'll help him upstairs. It is quite time he got out of those wet things."

With their joint assistance I hoisted myself out of the chair and, leaning heavily on the pair of them, hobbled across to 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 looked at his watch. "As far as I remember, you went to sleep in your bath soon after midnight. It's now four o'clock in the afternoon."

I started up in bed. "Four o'clock!" I exclaimed. "Good Lord! I must get up—I—"

He laid his hand on my shoulder. "Don't be foolish, my friend," he said. "You will get up when you are fit to get up. At the present moment you are going to have something to eat." He turned to the girl. "What are you thinking of giving him?" he asked.