de her
head.

"Don't tell me I am better, doctor. I do not want to live."

The plaintive tone, the refined accent, seemed to astonish him. Laying
down her hand, he answered gently:

"I do not like to hear that from such young lips, but it assures me that
I was correct in my first surmise, that it is not medicine you need but
a friend. And I can be that friend if you will but allow me."

Moved, encouraged for the instant, she turned her head from side to
side, probably to see if they were alone, and not observing me, answered
softly:

"You are very good, very thoughtful, doctor, but"--and here her despair
returned again--"it is useless; you can do nothing for me."

"You think so," remonstrated the old detective, "but you do not know me,
child. Let me show you that I can be of benefit to you." And he drew
from his pocket a little package which he opened before her astonished
eyes. "Yesterday, in your delirium, you left these rings in an office
down-town. As they are valuable, I have brought them back to you. Wasn't
I right, my child?"

"No! no!" She started up, and her accents betrayed terror and anguish,
"I do not want them; I cannot bear to see them; they do not belong to
_me_; they belong to _them_."

"To _them_? Whom do you mean by them?" queried Mr. Gryce, insinuatingly.

"The--the Van Burnams. Is not that the name? Oh, do not make me talk; I
am so weak! Only take the rings back."

"I will, child, I will." Mr. Gryce's voice was more than fatherly now,
it was tender, really and sincerely tender. "I will take them back; but
to which of the brothers shall I return them? To"--he hesitated
softly--"to Franklin or to Howard?"

I expected to hear her respond, his manner was so gentle and apparently
sincere. But though feverish and on the verge of wildness, she had still
some command over herself, and after giving him a look, the intensity
of which called out a corresponding expression on his face, she faltered
out:

"I--I don't care; I don't know either of the gentlemen; but to the one
you call Howard, I think."

The pause which followed was filled by the tap-tap of Mr. Gryce's
fingers on his knee.

"That is the one who is in custody," he observed at last. "The other,
that is Franklin, has gone scot-free thus far, I hear."

No answer from her close-shut lips.

He waited.

Still no answer.

"If you do not know either of these gentlemen," he insinuated at last,
"how did you come to leave the rings at