ir with her hands as though to bar that path against
me. . . .

I awoke with a start, to see standing over against me in the gloom of
the doorway, not the figure of my wife come from the company of the dead
with warning on her lips, but that of Stephen Strong. Yes, it was he,
for the light of the candle that I had lit when I went to seek the drug
fell full upon his pale face and large bald head.

"Hullo, doctor," he said in his harsh but not unkindly voice, "having a
nip and a nap, eh? What's your tipple? Hollands it looks, but it smells
more like peach brandy. May I taste it? I'm a judge of hollands," and he
lifted the glass of prussic acid and water from the table.

In an instant my dazed faculties were awake, and with a swift motion I
had knocked the glass from his hand, so that it fell upon the floor and
was shattered.

"Ah!" he said, "I _thought_ so. And now, young man, perhaps you will
tell me why you were playing a trick like that?"

"Why?" I answered bitterly. "Because my wife is dead; because my name
is disgraced; because my career is ruined; because they have commenced a
new action against me, and, if I live, I must become a bankrupt----"

"And you thought that you could make all these things better by killing
yourself. Doctor, I didn't believe that you were such a fool. You say
you have done nothing to be ashamed of, and I believe you. Well, then,
what does it matter what these folk think? For the rest, when a man
finds himself in a tight place, he shouldn't knock under, he should
fight his way through. You're in a tight place, I know, but I was once
in a tighter, yes, I did what you have nearly done--I went to jail on a
false charge and false evidence. But I didn't commit suicide. I served
my time, and I think it crazed me a bit though it was only a month; at
any rate, I was what they call a crank when I came out, which I wasn't
when I went in. Then I set to work and showed up those for whom I had
done time--living or dead they'll never forget Stephen Strong, I'll
warrant--and after that I turned to and became the head of the Radical
party and one of the richest men in Dunchester; why, I might have been
in Parliament half a dozen times over if I had chosen, although I am
only a draper. Now, if I have done all this, why can't you, who have
twice my brains and education, do as much?

"Nobody will employ you? I will find folk who will employ you. Action
for damages? I'll stand the shot of that however