"Jackson," said the doctor, startled. "I thought he had left."

"He was to leave this morning by the ten o'clock train, but he had a fainting-fit. We recovered him with brandy and he was too well, for this afternoon he faint again."

"Where is he now?" asked van Heerden, after a pause.

"In his room, monsieur. To-night he leave for Ireland--this he tell me--to catch the mail steamer at Queenstown."

"Don't let him know I am here," said the doctor.

He turned to the girl with a shrug.

"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he said.

"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he faints."

"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these little attacks are not serious--he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."

She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.

Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it off.

"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"

"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now, I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"--he leant across the table and spoke in a lower tone--"something that I have never told to a human being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."

"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.

"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw anything, but later he may change his tune."

A light dawned upon her.

"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"

"Exactly," said the doctor.

"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police searching for Jackson?"

"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am sending Mr. Jackson to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."

He met her eyes unfalteringly.

"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red Horse Valley."

He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment was inarticulate.

"What--what do you know?" he asked incoherently.

His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had created.

"I only know that I heard Mr. Jackson through the ventilator of my flat, saying good-bye to you the other night. He mentioned Red Horse Valley----"

He drew a deep breath and was master of himself again, but his face was still pale.

"Oh, that," he said, "that is a polite fiction. Jackson knows of this inebriates' home in Ontario and I had to provide him with a destination.

He will go no farther than----"

"Why, curse my life, if it isn't the doctor!"

At the sound of the raucous voice both looked up. The man called Jackson had hailed them from the centre of the hall. He was well dressed, but no tailor could compensate for the repulsiveness of that puckered and swollen face, those malignant eyes which peered out into the world through two slits. He was wearing his loud-check suit, his new hat was in his hand and the conical-shaped dome of his head glistened baldly.

"I'm cursed if this isn't amiable of you, doctor!"

He did not look at the girl, but grinned complacently upon her angry companion.

"Here I am "--he threw out his arms with an extravagant gesture--"leaving the country of my adoption, if not birth, without one solitary soul to see me off or take farewell of me. I, who have been--well, you know, what I've been, van Heerden. The world has treated me very badly. By heaven! I'd like to come back a billionaire and ruin all of 'em. I'd like to cut their throats and amputate 'em limb from limb, I would like----"

"Be silent!" said van Heerden angrily. "Have you no decency? Do you not realize I am with a lady?"

"Pardon." The man called Jackson leapt up from the chair into which he had fallen and bowed extravagantly in the direction of the girl. "I cannot see your face because of your hat, my dear lady," he said gallantly, "but I am sure my friend van Heerden, whose taste----"

"Will you be quiet?" said van Heerden. "Go to your room and I will come up to you."

"Go to my room!" scoffed the other. "By Jove! I like that! That any whipper-snapper of a sawbones should tell me to go to my room. After what I have been, after the position I have held in society. I have had ambassadors' carriages at my door, my dear fellow, princes of the royal blood, and to be told to go to my room like a naughty little boy! It's too much!"

"Then behave yourself," said van Heerden, "and at least wait until I am free before you approach me again."

But the man showed no inclination to move; rather did this rebuff stimulate his power of reminiscence.

"Ignore me, miss--I have not your name, but I am sure it is a noble one," he said. "You see before you one who in his time has been a squire of dames, by Jove! I can't remember 'em. They must number thousands and only one of them was worth two sous. Yes," he shook his head in melancholy, "only one of 'em. By Jove! The rest were"--he snapped his fingers--"that for 'em!"

The girl listened against her will.

"Jackson!"--and van Heerden's voice trembled with passion--"will you go or must I force you to go?"

Jackson rose with a loud laugh.

"Evidently I am _de trop_," he said with heavy sarcasm.

He held out a swollen hand which van Heerden ignored.

"Farewell, mademoiselle." He thrust the hand forward, so that she could not miss it.

She took it, a cold flabby thing which sent a shudder of loathing through her frame, and raised her face to his for the first time.

He let the hand drop. He was staring at her with open mouth and features distorted with horror.

"You!" he croaked.

She shrunk back against the wall of the alcove, but he made no movement.