with his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be both wise and kind of you to
leave the decision of the matter to myself."

Melrose stared at him.

"Come along here!" he said, roughly. Opening the door of the library, he
turned down the broad corridor to the right. Undershaw followed
unwillingly. He was due at a consultation at Keswick, and had no time to
waste with this old madman.

Melrose, still grumbling to himself, took a bunch of keys out of his
pocket, and fitted one to the last door in the passage. It opened with
difficulty. Undershaw saw dimly a large room, into which the light of a
rainy June day penetrated through a few chinks in the barred shutters.
Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical strength which amazed
his companion unshuttered and opened them all, helped by Undershaw. One
of them was a glass door leading down by steps to the garden outside.
Melrose dragged the heavy iron shutter which closed it open, and then,
panting, looked round at his companion.

"Will this do for you?"

"Wonderful!" said Undershaw heartily, staring in amazement at the lovely
tracery which incrusted the ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at the
stately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinese
wall-paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and pagodas, and its
branching trees. "I never saw such a place. But what is my patient to do
with an unfurnished room?"

"Furniture!" snorted Melrose. "Have you any idea, sir, what this house
contains?"

Undershaw shook his head.

Melrose pondered a moment, and took breath. Then he turned to Undershaw.

"You are going back to Pengarth? You pass that shop, Barclay's--the
upholsterer's. Tell him to send me over four men here to-morrow, to do
what they're told. Stop also at the nurseryman's--Johnson's. No--I'll
write. Give me three days--and you'll see."

He studied the doctor's face with his hawk's eyes.

Undershaw felt considerable embarrassment. The owner of the Tower
appeared to him more of a lunatic than ever.

"Well, really, Mr. Melrose--I appreciate your kindness--as I am sure my
patient will. But--why should you put yourself out to this extent? It
would be much simpler for everybody concerned that I should find him
the quarters I propose."

"You put it to Mr. Faversham that I am quite prepared to move him into
other quarters--and quarters infinitely more comfortable than he can get
in any infernal 'home' you talk of--or I shall put it to him my