an. "You bring me here in ignorance, and I am absolutely
helpless. I have no materials for treating injuries such as these. I
require lint, oil, bandages."

"They are here," said the gray-haired man quietly; and as his
companion, in obedience to a motion of his hand, left the room, he
looked at the Doctor, and asked anxiously, "Sir, can you save his life?"

"I don't know--it depends upon his constitution--of which I know
nothing--and the care that is bestowed upon him. But"--with a glance
round the wretched apartment--"he will not live if he stays here."

"He will not stay here."

The Doctor said no more, for the young man came back with bandages,
lint, and oil. All three had evidently been purchased in anticipation
of their being wanted. The Doctor applied them as well as he could, by
the dim light of the lamp. The patient moved and moaned, but he did not
open his eyes or show any signs of consciousness; the other two did not
speak once. His task concluded, the Doctor turned to them abruptly.

"He had better be moved at once; he cannot pass the night here--indeed,
he should have been got up-stairs at the first. If there is any
assistance that you can call it will be as well. He is utterly
helpless. He must be carried."

"Good!" said the elder man quietly, and with the suspicion of a mocking
smile at the corners of his mouth. "Explain, sir, if you please.
Carried where?"

"Up-stairs, of course!"

"Up-stairs!" Both men laughed, but only the elder echoed the word.
"Impossible, sir!" he said coolly.

"But I tell you he must be moved!" exclaimed the Doctor impatiently.
"You have risked his life already by your delay."

"Reassure yourself, sir," said the other, in the same tone as before.
"He shall be moved--I have said it!"

"Then where, if not up-stairs?"

"Out of the house."

"Out of the house--in this condition? You must be out of your mind! It
will kill him!"

Doctor Brudenell was excited. He rebelled against this treatment of his
patient--as his patient. As merely a man he would not have cared.

"Kill him--so be it!"

The speaker shrugged his shoulders, with a smile that expanded the scar
on his cheek, and the Doctor involuntarily moderated his tone. He
instinctively recognized that he had spoken too bluntly, too hastily to
this man, who looked impenetrable.

"You must really understand," he urged, "the great risk of what you are
about to do. This man's condition is dangerous now; the shock to the