natured friend.

As he hurriedly finished dressing, Panton plumed himself on his
cleverness. With all his heart he hoped the day would come when he would
be able to say to Varick: "Ages before _you_ thought of her, old chap,
_I_ selected Miss Brabazon as your future bride!" He hoped, uneasily,
that Sir Lyon was not seriously in the running. But he had noticed that
Sir Lyon and Miss Brabazon seemed to have a good deal to say to one
another. Women, so he told himself ruefully, like to be "My lady." But
she was certainly fond of Varick--she had been fond of him (of course,
only as a woman may be of a friend's husband) during those sad weeks at
Redsands.

* * * * *

As the doctor came out of his room he decided to go in for a moment and
see Bubbles Dunster. Somehow he did not feel quite easy about her. He
wondered, uncomfortably, if there could be anything in Varick's painful
suspicion. After her aunt and Helen Brabazon between them had put her to
bed, and he had come in, alone, to see how she was, she had said
abruptly: "I wonder if it's true that doctors can keep a secret better
than most men?" And when he had made some joking answer, she had asked,
in a very serious tone: "You're a great friend of Lionel Varick, eh?" He
had answered: "Men don't vow eternal friendships in the way I'm told
young ladies do; but, yes, I hope I am a great friend of Lionel
Varick's. I've a high opinion of him, Miss Bubbles, and I've seen him
under circumstances that test a man."

She had looked at him fixedly while he said these words, and then she
had opened and shut her eyes in a very odd way. He now asked himself if
it was probable--possible--conceivable--that she blamed Varick for her
accident? He, Varick, evidently thought so.

And then, as he walked along the darkened corridor, there came over Dr.
Panton a most extraordinary feeling--_a feeling that he was not alone._

He stayed his steps, and listened intently. But the only sound he heard
was the ticking of a clock. He walked on, and all at once there came a
word repeated twice, quite distinctly, almost as if in his ear. It was a
disagreeable, an offensive word--a word, or rather an appellation, which
the clever young doctor had not heard applied to himself for a good many
years. For, twice over, was the word "Fool!" repeated in a mocking
voice, a voice to whose owner he could not at the moment put a name, and
yet which seemed vaguely familiar.

Th