ith two swift cuts he took out a
broad V-shaped piece. The woman sprang up on the couch with a dreadful
gurgling scream. Her covering was torn from her face. It was a face
that he knew. In spite of that protruding upper lip and that slobber
of blood, it was a face that he knew, She kept on putting her hand up
to the gap and screaming. Douglas Stone sat down at the foot of the
couch with his knife and his forceps. The room was whirling round, and
he had felt something go like a ripping seam behind his ear. A
bystander would have said that his face was the more ghastly of the
two. As in a dream, or as if he had been looking at something at the
play, he was conscious that the Turk's hair and beard lay upon the
table, and that Lord Sannox was leaning against the wall with his hand
to his side, laughing silently. The screams had died away now, and the
dreadful head had dropped back again upon the pillow, but Douglas Stone
still sat motionless, and Lord Sannox still chuckled quietly to himself.

"It was really very necessary for Marion, this operation," said he,
"not physically, but morally, you know, morally."

Douglas Stone stooped for yards and began to play with the fringe of
the coverlet. His knife tinkled down upon the ground, but he still
held the forceps and something more.

"I had long intended to make a little example," said Lord Sannox,
suavely. "Your note of Wednesday miscarried, and I have it here in my
pocket-book. I took some pains in carrying out my idea. The wound, by
the way, was from nothing more dangerous than my signet ring."

He glanced keenly at his silent companion, and cocked the small
revolver which he held in his coat pocket. But Douglas Stone was still
picking at the coverlet.

"You see you have kept your appointment after all," said Lord Sannox.

And at that Douglas Stone began to laugh. He laughed long and loudly.
But Lord Sannox did not laugh now. Something like fear sharpened and
hardened his features. He walked from the room, and he walked on
tiptoe. The old woman was waiting outside.

"Attend to your mistress when she awakes," said Lord Sannox.

Then he went down to the street. The cab was at the door, and the
driver raised his hand to his hat.

"John," said Lord Sannox, "you will take the doctor home first. He will
want leading downstairs, I think. Tell his butler that he has been
taken ill at a case."

"Very good, sir."

"Then you can take Lady Sannox home."