d with a firm pressure there was no resisting--"and watch Mr.
Cheniston carefully. If he shows signs of waking come for me. But don't
disturb him in any way. You understand?"

The girl said, rather whimperingly, that she did; and with a last glance
at Cheniston, who still lay sunk in a dreary stupor, Anstice went
quietly from the room in search of his comrades in misfortune.

He found them in the room in which he had first seen Iris; and he joined
the conclave without loss of time.

"Oh, here you are!" Iris broke off in the middle of a sentence and came
forward. "Mrs. Wood, this is Dr. Anstice; and this"--she turned to a
tall, clean-shaven man dressed, rather unconventionally, in the clothes
of a clergyman--"is Mr. Wood. Here is Mr. Garnett, and that is all, with
the exception of Molly."

She drew forward a child of about Cherry Carstairs' age, a pale, fragile
child in whose face Anstice read plainly the querulousness of an
inherited delicacy of constitution.

"She ought really to be asleep," said Mrs. Wood, a short, rather
good-looking woman of a florid type, whose subdued voice and air were at
variance with the cheerful outline of her features. "But somehow night
and day have got mixed up at present--in fact, my watch has stopped, and
I don't know what time it is."

"It is just ten o'clock, Mrs. Wood." It was Roger Garnett who
volunteered the information; and as Anstice turned to discover what
manner of man the speaker might be he was relieved to find that the
young Australian wore an unmistakably militant air. He was of average
height, with powerful shoulders; and in his blue eyes burned a lust for
battle which was in no way diminished by the fact that his left arm was
bound up just below the elbow.

"Brute dotted me one there," he explained casually as he saw Anstice's
glance fall on the bandage. "Thought at first he'd broken a bone, but he
hadn't. It was only a flesh wound, and Mrs. Wood did it up in the most
approved St. John style!"

"I'll look at it for you presently, if you like," said Anstice, "though
it appears to be most scientifically bandaged. Now, what I should like
to know is this. Did these fellows attack you last night? They did? At
what time--and in what force did they come?"

"It was just before dawn--the recognized time for a night attack, eh?"
Garnett's blue eyes twinkled. "They thought it was going to be a soft
job, I believe; but they had apparently forgotten that the door was
pretty w