innocent
girl's love!" cried her father, moving toward him with threatening
manner and blazing eyes. Then, suddenly, the physician staggered back
and sank into his arm-chair.

"Leave me, Felix," he said, and though his tones were suddenly grown
feeble, they still vibrated with angry contempt. "Go, now, at once. I
don't want you near me. But I'll see you again about this matter. And
if you try to communicate with Mildred I'll have you arrested! Go!
Go!"

The architect turned on his heel and left the room. Dr. Annister sank
wearily into his chair and his hands sought their accustomed position.
Then they too fell back against his chest. "Mildred!" his white lips
whispered, then stiffened and were still.

[Illustration: "MILDRED!" HIS WHITE LIPS WHISPERED, THEN STIFFENED AND
WERE STILL]

CHAPTER XXIII

WHITHER?

Felix Brand opened his eyes, then let the lids quickly flutter down
again. He was afraid to look about him, for he was no longer sure
where he might awaken after what seemed to him to have been no more
than an ordinary night's sleep. Apprehensively he lifted one hand to
his face and felt of his upper lip. There was no mustache upon it.
Reassured, he opened his eyes again, and with deep relief gazed about
his familiar bedroom.

"I guess it's still the next day after yesterday," he said to himself
with profound satisfaction. For a moment he centered his attention
upon himself. "And that damned Gordon has subsided," he muttered. "I
don't feel him at all this morning. That's promising. I've had a good
night's rest, now I'll have a good day and tonight I'll go to see Dr.
Annister and let him begin--the devil!" Remembrance had flashed upon
him of his last night's interview with the physician.

"But he promised to help me and he'll have to do it. I'll do anything
he says about Mildred--let her divorce me if he wants her to. A wife's
a nuisance. I'm sure I don't want to be tied up with one. What did I
do it for anyway?"

Notwithstanding his confidence that there had been no hiatus in his
life since his last waking hours, Brand glanced with some trepidation
at the date line of the morning paper. "That's right," he thought.

His eyes dropped down over the headlines and he stopped stock still,
his face paling. "Dead!" he exclaimed aloud. "Now what's to become of
me!"

As he read the article, displayed prominently on the front page, which
told of the death of Dr. Philip Annister, the famous nerve specia