slowly to himself--"to close
his lips. Dead men tell no tales."

He sat for a long time, his narrow-set eyes staring into space,
contemplating a crime. As a medical man, he knew a dozen ingenious ways
by which Walter Fetherston might be sent to his grave in circumstances
that would appear perfectly natural. His gaze at last wandered to the
book-case opposite, and became centred upon a thick, brown-covered, dirty
volume by a writer named Taylor. That book contained much that might be
of interest to him in the near future.

Of a sudden the handle of the door turned, and Mrs. Kelsey, the old
housekeeper, in rusty black, admitted Enid Orlebar without the ceremony
of asking permission to enter.

The girl was dressed in a pearl grey and pink sports coat, with a large
black hat, and carried a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was a
white feather boa, while her features were half concealed by the veil she
wore.

"Ah, my dear young lady," cried Weirmarsh, rising quickly and greeting
her, while next moment he turned to his table and hastily concealed the
foreign letter and notes, "I had quite forgotten that you were to consult
me. Pray forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive," the beautiful girl replied in a low,
colourless voice, when the housekeeper had disappeared, and she had
seated herself in the big leather arm-chair in which so many patients
daily sat. "You ordered me to come here to you, and I have come."

"Against your will, eh?" he asked slowly, with a strange look in his keen
eyes.

"I am perfectly well now. I do not see why my stepfather should betray
such anxiety on my account."

"The general is greatly concerned about you," Weirmarsh said, seated
cross-legged at his writing-chair, toying with his pen and looking into
the girl's handsome face.

"He wished me to see you. That is why I wrote to you."

"Well," she said, wavering beneath his sharp glance, "I am here. What do
you wish?"

"I wish to have a little private talk with you, Miss Enid," he replied
thoughtfully, stroking his small greyish moustache, "a talk concerning
your own welfare."

"But I am not ill," she cried. "I don't see why you should desire me to
come to you to-night."

"I have my own reasons, my dear young lady," was the man's firm response,
his eyes fixed immovably upon hers. "And I think you know me well enough
to be aware that when Dr. Weirmarsh sets his mind upon a thing he is not
easily turned aside."

A slight, alm