callin', sir." John tried the door. He found the chain
bolt on, and it opened but a few inches. "Father!" he called, and then
again, louder. He turned almost unconsciously to Jeffrey, and found his
own apprehensions reflected in the man's face. "We must break in the
door," he said. "Now, together!" and the bolt gave way.

His father lay as if asleep. "Go for the doctor at once! Bring him back
with you. Run!" he cried to the servant. Custom and instinct said,
"Send for the doctor," but he knew in his heart that no ministrations
would ever reach the still figure on the bed, upon which, for the
moment, he could not look. It was but a few minutes (how long such
minutes are!) before the doctor came--Doctor Willis, who had brought
John into the world, and had been a lifelong friend of both father and
son. He went swiftly to the bed without speaking, and made a brief
examination, while John watched him with fascinated eyes; and as the
doctor finished, the son dropped on his knees by the bed, and buried his
face in it. The doctor crossed the room to Jeffrey, who was standing in
the door with an awe-stricken face, and in a low voice gave him some
directions. Then, as the man departed, he first glanced at the kneeling
figure and then looked searchingly about the room. Presently he went
over to the grate in which were the ashes of an extinct fire, and,
taking the poker, pressed down among them and covered over a three or
four ounce vial. He had found what he was looking for.

* * * * *

There is no need to speak of the happenings of the next few days, nor is
it necessary to touch at any length upon the history of some of the
weeks and months which ensued upon this crisis in John Lenox's life, a
time when it seemed to him that everything he had ever cared for had
been taken. And yet, with that unreason which may perhaps be more easily
understood than accounted for, the one thing upon which his mind most
often dwelt was that he had had no answer to his note to Mary Blake. We
know what happened to her missive. It turned up long afterward in the
pocket of Master Jacky Carling's overcoat; so long afterward that John,
so far as Mary was concerned, had disappeared altogether. The discovery
of Jacky's dereliction explained to her, in part at least, why she had
never seen him or heard from him after that last evening at Sixty-ninth
Street. The Carlings went away some ten days later, and she did, in
fact, s