"Quick? Well, yes. Thank Heaven, my mind works fast; my perceptions are rapid. Otherwise--" she looked grave. "One second more, and it would have been too late. The man might have killed me."

"You think it is poisoned, then?"

Hilda shook her head with confident dissent. "Poisoned? Oh, no. He is wiser now. Fifteen years ago, he used poison. But science has made gigantic strides since then. He would not needlessly expose himself to-day to the risks of the poisoner."

"Fifteen years ago he used poison?"

She nodded, with the air of one who knows. "I am not speaking at random," she answered. "I say what I know. Some day I will explain. For the present, it is enough to tell you I know it."

"And what do you suspect now?" I asked, the weird sense of her strange power deepening on me every second.

She held up the incriminated needle again.

"Do you see this groove?" she asked, pointing to it with the tip of another.

I examined it once more at the light with the lens. A longitudinal groove, apparently ground into one side of the needle, lengthwise, by means of a small grinding-stone and emery powder, ran for a quarter of an inch above the point. This groove seemed to me to have been produced by an amateur, though he must have been one accustomed to delicate microscopic manipulation; for the edges under the lens showed slightly rough, like the surface of a file on a small scale: not smooth and polished, as a needle-maker would have left them. I said so to Hilda.

"You are quite right," she answered. "That is just what it shows. I feel sure Sebastian made that groove himself. He could have bought grooved needles, it is true, such as they sometimes use for retaining small quant.i.ties of lymphs and medicines; but we had none in stock, and to buy them would be to manufacture evidence against himself, in case of detection. Besides, the rough, jagged edge would hold the material he wished to inject all the better, while its saw-like points would tear the flesh, imperceptibly, but minutely, and so serve his purpose."

"Which was?"

"Try the needle, and judge for yourself. I prefer you should find out.

You can tell me to-morrow."

"It was quick of you to detect it!" I cried, still turning the suspicious object over. "The difference is so slight."

"Yes; but you tell me my eyes are as sharp as the needle. Besides, I had reason to doubt; and Sebastian himself gave me the clue by selecting his instrument with too great deliberation. He had put it there with the rest, but it lay a little apart; and as he picked it up gingerly, I began to doubt. When I saw the blue gleam, my doubt was at once converted into certainty. Then his eyes, too, had the look which I know means victory. Benign or baleful, it goes with his triumphs. I have seen that look before, and when once it lurks scintillating in the luminous depths of his gleaming eyeb.a.l.l.s, I recognise at once that, whatever his aim, he has succeeded in it."

"Still, Hilda, I am loth--"

She waved her hand impatiently. "Waste no time," she cried, in an authoritative voice. "If you happen to let that needle rub carelessly against the sleeve of your coat you may destroy the evidence. Take it at once to your room, plunge it into a culture, and lock it up safe at a proper temperature--where Sebastian cannot get at it--till the consequences develop."

I did as she bid me. By this time, I was not wholly unprepared for the result she antic.i.p.ated. My belief in Sebastian had sunk to zero, and was rapidly reaching a negative quant.i.ty.

At nine the next morning, I tested one drop of the culture under the microscope. Clear and limpid to the naked eye, it was alive with small objects of a most suspicious nature, when properly magnified. I knew those hungry forms. Still, I would not decide offhand on my own authority in a matter of such moment. Sebastian's character was at stake--the character of the man who led the profession. I called in Callaghan, who happened to be in the ward, and asked him to put his eye to the instrument for a moment. He was a splendid fellow for the use of high powers, and I had magnified the culture 300 diameters. "What do you call those?" I asked, breathless.

He scanned them carefully with his experienced eye. "Is it the microbes ye mean?" he answered. "An' what 'ud they be, then, if it wasn't the bacillus of pyaemia?"

"Blood-poisoning!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, horror-struck.

"Aye; blood-poisoning: that's the English of it."

I a.s.sumed an air of indifference. "I made them that myself," I rejoined, as if they were mere ordinary experimental germs; "but I wanted confirmation of my own opinion. You're sure of the bacillus?"

"An' haven't I been keeping swarms of those very same bacteria under close observation for Sebastian for seven weeks past? Why, I know them as well as I know me own mother."

"Thank you," I said. "That will do." And I carried off the microscope, bacilli and all, into Hilda Wade's sitting-room. "Look yourself!" I cried to her.

She stared at them through the instrument with an unmoved face. "I thought so," she answered shortly. "The bacillus of pyaemia. A most virulent type. Exactly what I expected."

"You antic.i.p.ated that result?"

"Absolutely. You see, blood-poisoning matures quickly, and kills almost to a certainty. Delirium supervenes so soon that the patient has no chance of explaining suspicions. Besides, it would all seem so very natural! Everybody would say: 'She got some slight wound, which microbes from some case she was attending contaminated.' You may be sure Sebastian thought out all that. He plans with consummate skill. He had designed everything."

I gazed at her, uncertain. "And what will you DO?" I asked. "Expose him?"

She opened both her palms with a blank gesture of helplessness. "It is useless!" she answered. "n.o.body would believe me. Consider the situation. YOU know the needle I gave you was the one Sebastian meant to use--the one he dropped and I caught--BECAUSE you are a friend of mine, and because you have learned to trust me. But who else would credit it?

I have only my word against his--an unknown nurse's against the great Professor's. Everybody would say I was malicious or hysterical. Hysteria is always an easy stone to fling at an injured woman who asks for justice. They would declare I had trumped up the case to forestall my dismissal. They would set it down to spite. We can do nothing against him. Remember, on his part, the utter absence of overt motive."

"And you mean to stop on here, in close attendance on a man who has attempted your life?" I cried, really alarmed for her safety.

"I am not sure about that," she answered. "I must take time to think. My presence at Nathaniel's was necessary to my Plan. The Plan fails for the present. I have now to look round and reconsider my position."

"But you are not safe here now," I urged, growing warm. "If Sebastian really wishes to get rid of you, and is as unscrupulous as you suppose, with his gigantic brain he can soon compa.s.s his end. What he plans he executes. You ought not to remain within the Professor's reach one hour longer."

"I have thought of that, too," she replied, with an almost unearthly calm. "But there are difficulties either way. At any rate, I am glad he did not succeed this time. For, to have killed me now, would have frustrated my Plan"--she clasped her hands--"my Plan is ten thousand times dearer than life to me!"

"Dear lady!" I cried, drawing a deep breath, "I implore you in this strait, listen to what I urge. Why fight your battle alone? Why refuse a.s.sistance? I have admired you so long--I am so eager to help you. If only you will allow me to call you--"

Her eyes brightened and softened. Her whole bosom heaved. I felt in a flash she was not wholly indifferent to me. Strange tremors in the air seemed to play about us. But she waved me aside once more. "Don't press me," she said, in a very low voice. "Let me go my own way. It is hard enough already, this task I have undertaken, without YOUR making it harder.... Dear friend, dear friend, you don't quite understand. There are TWO men at Nathaniel's whom I desire to escape--because they both alike stand in the way of my Purpose." She took my hands in hers. "Each in a different way," she murmured once more. "But each I must avoid.

One is Sebastian. The other--" she let my hand drop again, and broke off suddenly. "Dear Hubert," she cried, with a catch, "I cannot help it: forgive me!"

It was the first time she had ever called me by my Christian name. The mere sound of the word made me unspeakably happy.

Yet she waved me away. "Must I go?" I asked, quivering.

"Yes, yes: you must go. I cannot stand it. I must think this thing out, undisturbed. It is a very great crisis."

That afternoon and evening, by some unhappy chance, I was fully engaged in work at the hospital. Late at night a letter arrived for me. I glanced at it in dismay. It bore the Basingstoke postmark. But, to my alarm and surprise, it was in Hilda's hand. What could this change portend? I opened it, all tremulous.

"DEAR HUBERT,--" I gave a sigh of relief. It was no longer "Dear Dr.

c.u.mberledge" now, but "Hubert." That was something gained, at any rate.

I read on with a beating heart. What had Hilda to say to me?

"DEAR HUBERT,--By the time this reaches you, I shall be far away, irrevocably far, from London. With deep regret, with fierce searchings of spirit, I have come to the conclusion that, for the Purpose I have in view, it would be better for me at once to leave Nathaniel's. Where I go, or what I mean to do, I do not wish to tell you. Of your charity, I pray, refrain from asking me. I am aware that your kindness and generosity deserve better recognition. But, like Sebastian himself, I am the slave of my Purpose. I have lived for it all these years, and it is still very dear to me. To tell you my plans would interfere with that end. Do not, therefore, suppose I am insensible to your goodness....

Dear Hubert, spare me--I dare not say more, lest I say too much. I dare not trust myself. But one thing I MUST say. I am flying from YOU quite as much as from Sebastian. Flying from my own heart, quite as much as from my enemy. Some day, perhaps, if I accomplish my object, I may tell you all. Meanwhile, I can only beg of you of your kindness to trust me.

We shall not meet again, I fear, for years. But I shall never forget you--you, the kind counsellor, who have half turned me aside from my life's Purpose. One word more, and I should falter.--In very great haste, and amid much disturbance, yours ever affectionately and gratefully,

"HILDA."

It was a hurried scrawl in pencil, as if written in a train. I felt utterly dejected. Was Hilda, then, leaving England?

Rousing myself after some minutes, I went straight to Sebastian's rooms, and told him in brief terms that Nurse Wade had disappeared at a moment's notice, and had sent a note to tell me so.

He looked up from his work, and scanned me hard, as was his wont. "That is well," he said at last, his eyes glowing deep; "she was getting too great a hold on you, that young woman!"