face told the truth, when the study
door opened between ten and eleven at night, and Miss Gwilt entered the
room.

"Mercy on me!" he exclaimed, with a look of the blankest bewilderment.
"What does this mean?"

"It means," she answered, "that I have decided to-night instead of
deciding to-morrow. You, who know women so well, ought to know that they
act on impulse. I am here on an impulse. Take me or leave me, just as
you like."

"Take you or leave you?" repeated the doctor, recovering his presence of
mind. "My dear lady, what a dreadful way of putting it! Your room shall
be got ready instantly! Where is your luggage? Will you let me send
for it? No? You can do without your luggage to-night? What admirable
fortitude! You will fetch it yourself to-morrow? What extraordinary
independence! Do take off your bonnet. Do draw in to the fire! What can
I offer you?"

"Offer me the strongest sleeping draught you ever made in your life,"
she replied. "And leave me alone till the time comes to take it. I
shall be your patient in earnest!" she added, fiercely, as the doctor
attempted to remonstrate. "I shall be the maddest of the mad if you
irritate me to-night!"

The Principal of the Sanitarium became gravely and briefly professional
in an instant.

"Sit down in that dark corner," he said. "Not a soul shall disturb you.
In half an hour you will find your room ready, and your sleeping
draught on the table."--"It's been a harder struggle for her than
I anticipated," he thought, as he left the room, and crossed to his
Dispensary on the opposite side of the hall. "Good heavens, what
business has she with a conscience, after such a life as hers has been!"

The Dispensary was elaborately fitted up with all the latest
improvements in medical furniture. But one of the four walls of the room
was unoccupied by shelves, and here the vacant space was filled by a
handsome antique cabinet of carved wood, curiously out of harmony, as an
object, with the unornamented utilitarian aspect of the place generally.
On either side of the cabinet two speaking-tubes were inserted in the
wall, communicating with the upper regions of the house, and labeled
respectively "Resident Dispenser" and "Head Nurse." Into the second of
these tubes the doctor spoke, on entering the room. An elderly woman
appeared, took her orders for preparing Mrs. Armadale's bed-chamber,
courtesied, and retired.

Left alone again in the Dispensary, the doctor unlocked the cen