"Oh, I forgot your patient," said he, with a twitching mouth. "But, for G.o.d's sake, don't keep me waiting long!"

I shook my head in answer; then ran, rather than walked, up the Marburys' steps; indeed, that night taught me how active a corpulent old codger can be if the need comes.

Miss Peters evidently had been at the window in her night vigil, watching the storm; she opened the door.

"Well?" said I.

"The tide has turned."

Under the hall light I looked up at her stony, expressionless face. The Sphinx itself was never more noncommittal.

"What do you mean?"

"I supposed you knew," she whispered. "I supposed that was why you came back to-night so late."

I exclaimed in a hoa.r.s.e and savage whisper. I was furious. This time I had fought with disease not only, as in a common struggle, with carnivorous Death, but as a hardened sinner whose heart has suddenly opened to a child.

"Virginia is dead!" I said, glaring at her.

She never changed the coldness of her tone.

"No," she said. "She is going to get well."

"Confound it!" I growled, under my breath. "How do you know?"

"The blue wall," she answered with a sneer.

"Bah!" said I, starting up the stairs. "We shall see."

As I pushed open the door, I observed that the nurse had procured a red silk shade to screen the single electric lamp on the table. The yellow rays were changed to a pink, reflected on the wall, sending their rosy lights into the depths of that bottomless blue; the breaking of a clear day after a spring rain has no softer mingling of colors. For a moment I looked at the chart, then with new hope turned toward Virginia herself.

Either the new tints diffused by the lamp deceived the eye, or the little girl's pale skin had in fact been warmed by a new response from the springs of life. She was sleeping quietly, her innocent face turned a little toward me and in the faint, illusive smile at her mouth, and in the relaxation of her beautiful hands, I read the confirmation of Miss Peters's prophecy. I, too, believed just then that Virginia would not die, and that, as so rarely happens in this disease, her recovery would be complete.

"It is a wild night," said the bony nurse when I had tiptoed out of the room.

She seemed to be wishing to draw from me an opinion on the extraordinary rally the child had made. That was her way; she always invited discussion of a subject by comments about something wholly irrelevant.

"We shall see," I answered again. "A relapse might be fatal.

To-morrow--we shall see."

"It is raining hard," she said as she turned the latch for me.

"Yes," said I, "and the treatment till then must be the same. Who knows--"

"Who knows?" she repeated.

A blast of wind and water and the closing of the door seemed to deny an answer. I found myself on the steps again, looking into the staring eyes of my car, and, with a sharp jump of my thoughts, wondering how we were to accomplish the work we had come to do. I descended, however, and when I had reached the door of my limousine, I saw Estabrook's drawn face pressed close to the gla.s.s. It was the sight of him that gave me an idea; it was his first words that, for a moment, drove it from my mind.

"Look! Look!" he said to me. "Look at her window!"

I had merely noticed that a new, bright light shone there; now, in a quick glance over my shoulder, I saw a shadow on the curtain--the shadow of a figure standing with its arms extended above a head, thrown back as if in agony.

"Is it your wife?" I asked in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

He took my wrist in the grip of his cold hand. "My G.o.d, Doctor, I don't know," he said. "It looks--its motions, its att.i.tudes, its posture!--it looks like the thing I saw outside the Judge's window!"

CHAPTER II

MARGARET

Well, now,--his words made me shudder! I confess it with some reluctance. Of course a doctor comes in contact with enough real horrors. They become ordinary. It is those undefined, doubtful things which run fear through the veins like a drug. Nevertheless I caught myself in time to conceal my nervousness.

"Here, here, Estabrook!" I said in a sharp, businesslike tone. "We didn't come to watch drawn curtains. The question is, did you bring your keys?"

Without asking me questions, he handed them over.

"Now, understand me," I said, for I could see that in truth he was in no condition to offer much a.s.sistance. "My advice is for you to take these keys and walk into your own house."

"I can't do that," he said irritably. "I've told you I can't do it--and why I can't."

"Then understand me further," I said when a shriek of wind had gone off down the avenue. "I have debated this question and decided that we must not disturb your wife. She has warned against that, and perhaps it is better to a.s.sume she is not insane and take her warning."

"Yes, yes," he cried. "That is right."

"I shall not parley with Margaret Murchie," I went on. "Move a little! I have something I want to reach under the seat. There!--I shall not ask her to come. She will have no choice. It will all be over before she has time to cry out. And you must be ready to help me carry her into this car."

"The law--" he began.

"Oh, I know that," said I. "But it is a choice of doing this, or nothing. Any other course either makes you break your confounded, nonsensical word of honor, or else raises a noise that will bring the reporters around like so many vultures. It is your affair, after all.

Shall I stop here?"

Again, as I spoke, I felt the pleasurable thrill of adventure which I had supposed had gone with my youth.

"You want me to wait here till you signal?" he asked.

"Yes."

"As you say!" he agreed. "The old servant knows. She must tell. I can't stand it any longer. She must be made to tell."

I nodded. He indicated the proper key with a touch of his forefinger.

Whereupon, crossing the sidewalk again and ascending the Estabrooks'

steps with as much unconcern as if they had been my own, I fitted the key softly and turned the lock.

The very instant that I tried to open the heavy door, however, I knew that a watcher who had been observing our movements through the silk curtains was behind it. I felt a resisting pressure. I heard a stifled scream. It was no moment for indecision. With an unbelievable rapidity of thought, I estimated the chances of the unseen person being armed, the hazard of his giving vent to an uproar which would bring the neighborhood about our ears. Then I threw my body against the door with all the force I could muster. It yielded suddenly; with a crash it flew back against the tiled wall. I was precipitated forward and a second later found myself in the ridiculous performance of rolling around on the floor with what felt to me like a fat wash, consigned to a laundry.

It was, however, a bundle from which choking imprecations and grunts exploded, and which for a turn or two was enlivened with upheavals of some strength. Well enough to laugh now, but at that moment, you may be sure, I was searching with my free hand for the person's mouth.