with a jerk. In a moment the young man had opened the door, sprung out,
and was saying:

"We are here. Alight, sir, if you please."

Doctor Brudenell, confused and sleepy still, did so, looking about him.
He was in a narrow paved court, entirely unlighted, closed in at the
lower end by what seemed to be a huge deserted stack of warehouses and
fenced upon the farther side by the blank walls and regular rows of
narrow windows of what had evidently been a manufactory; but the
windows were broken; a door hung swinging upon its hinges; it was
evident that this place was unused and deserted too. Upon the side
where he stood were a couple of old houses, bare and desolate, with
broken windows, broken railings--dark, silent--the most dismal houses
the Doctor had ever seen.

At the door of the first of these, where a faint light was visible in
one of the lower windows as the carriage stopped, the young man tapped
cautiously with his hand three times. In another moment the door was
softly opened, the figure of the opener being lost in the gloom within.
On the broken door-step the Doctor hesitated; he was not a timid man,
but this all seemed very strange. However, he obeyed the pressure of
the hand laid upon his arm, and entered; glancing behind him as he did
so, he saw that the carriage had disappeared.

The door was gently closed; and he stood in absolute darkness,
hesitating, wondering. He fancied he heard cautious feet stealing
across the bare floor of the hall; but not another sound broke the
oppressive brooding silence of the close, musty-smelling old house. In
another moment he would have spoken, have demanded the meaning of all
this, when a faint gleam of light appeared at the end of the hall, and
from the lower stairs a man's hand and arm became visible, holding a
lamp. A hand was laid upon his arm at the same moment, and the voice of
his summoner spoke quietly in his ear:

"Your patient is ready, sir. Come, if you please."

The speaker went toward the stairs, and the light was withdrawn. The
Doctor followed him for a few paces, then stopped abruptly.

"Down-stairs!" he said incredulously.

"Sir, he was too bad to be moved."

"I see. Go before, if you please."

The light glimmered faintly at the foot of the staircase again, and the
Doctor followed his conductor down, noting that the steps were dirty
and bare, that the stone passage-way at the bottom was also dirty and
bare, that, for all the indications that t