en, as his eye remained fixed on her: "You are
wondering if I have friends. We both have and I have just come from
telegraphing to one of them. You can leave us, with an easy mind. All
that I dread is that Miss Huckins will worry about me if her
consciousness should return during the night."

"It will not return so soon. Next week we may look for it. Then you can
be by to reassure her if she asks for you."

Carmers eyes fell.

"I would not be a cause of distress to her for the world. She has been
very good to me." Bowing, she turned in the direction of the office.

The doctor, lifting his hat, took his departure. The interview might have
lasted five minutes. She felt as though it had lasted an hour.

She followed the doctor's advice and left half the money she had, in
charge of the clerk. Then she went upstairs. She was not seen to come
down again; but when the eight-forty-five train started out of the
station that night, it had for a passenger, a young, heavily veiled girl,
who went straight to her section. A balcony running by her window had
favoured her escape. It led to a hall window at the head of a side
staircase. She met no one on the staircase, and, once out of the door at
its foot, her difficulties were over, and her escape effected.

She was missed the next morning, and an account of her erratic flight
reached the papers, and was published far and wide. But the name of Miss
Caroline Campbell conveyed nothing to the public, and the great trial
went on without a soul suspecting the significance of this midnight
flitting of an unknown and partially demented girl.

At the house of Dr. Carpenter she met Mr. Moffat. What she told him
heartened him greatly for the struggle he saw before him. Indeed, it
altered the whole tone of the defence. Perceiving from her story, and
from what the doctor could tell him of their meeting at the station that
her return to town was as yet a secret to every one but themselves, he
begged that the secret should continue to be kept, in order that the
_coup d'etat_ which he meditated might lose none of its force by
anticipation. Carmel, whose mind was full of her coming ordeal, was
willing enough to hide her head until it came; while Dr. Carpenter,
alarmed at all this excitement, would have insisted on it in any event.

Carmel wished her brother informed of her return, but the wily lawyer
persuaded her to excuse him from taking Arthur into his confidence until
the last moment. He