e doctor's eye as though some huge and sombre figure walked by a
manikin's side and led him silently up the lonely street.

Dr. Horace Selby heard again of his patient next morning, and rather
earlier than he had expected. A paragraph in the Daily News caused him
to push away his breakfast untasted, and turned him sick and faint
while he read it. "A Deplorable Accident," it was headed, and it ran
in this way:

"A fatal accident of a peculiarly painful character is reported from
King William Street. About eleven o'clock last night a young man was
observed while endeavouring to get out of the way of a hansom to slip
and fall under the wheels of a heavy, two-horse dray. On being picked
up his injuries were found to be of the most shocking character, and he
expired while being conveyed to the hospital. An examination of his
pocketbook and cardcase shows beyond any question that the deceased is
none other than Sir Francis Norton, of Deane Park, who has only within
the last year come into the baronetcy. The accident is made the more
deplorable as the deceased, who was only just of age, was on the eve of
being married to a young lady belonging to one of the oldest families
in the South. With his wealth and his talents the ball of fortune was
at his feet, and his many friends will be deeply grieved to know that
his promising career has been cut short in so sudden and tragic a
fashion."

A FALSE START.

"Is Dr. Horace Wilkinson at home?"

"I am he. Pray step in."

The visitor looked somewhat astonished at having the door opened to him
by the master of the house.

"I wanted to have a few words."

The doctor, a pale, nervous young man, dressed in an
ultra-professional, long black frock-coat, with a high, white collar
cutting off his dapper side-whiskers in the centre, rubbed his hands
together and smiled. In the thick, burly man in front of him he
scented a patient, and it would be his first. His scanty resources had
begun to run somewhat low, and, although he had his first quarter's
rent safely locked away in the right-hand drawer of his desk, it was
becoming a question with him how he should meet the current expenses of
his very simple housekeeping. He bowed, therefore, waved his visitor
in, closed the hall door in a careless fashion, as though his own
presence thereat had been a purely accidental circumstance, and finally
led the burly stranger into his scantily furnished front room, where he
motione