orget it."

"Did he receive a telegram that day?"

"Not that I know of. He often answers the bell himself."

"Do you know whether he had a visitor, just before you heard him fall?"

"He had a patient, yes. A man."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know. He was a stranger to me."

"Do you remember what he looked like?"

Minnie reflected.

"He was a smallish man, maybe thirty-five or so," she said. "I think he
had gaiters over his shoes, or maybe light tops. He was a nice appearing
person."

"How soon after that did you hear Doctor David fall?"

"Right away. First the door slammed, and then he dropped."

Poor old David! Dick had not the slightest doubt now that David had
received some unfortunate news, and that up there in his bedroom ever
since, alone and helpless, he had been struggling with some secret dread
he could not share with any one. Not even with Lucy, probably.

Nevertheless, Dick made a try with Lucy that evening.

"Aunt Lucy," he said, "do you know of anything that could have caused
David's collapse?"

"What sort of thing?" she asked guardedly.

"A letter, we'll say, or a visitor?"

When he saw that she was only puzzled and thinking back, he knew she
could not help him.

"Never mind," he said. "I was feeling about for some cause. That's all."

He was satisfied that Lucy knew no more than he did of David's visitor,
and that David had kept his own counsel ever since. But the sense of
impending disaster that had come with the letter did not leave him. He
went through his evening office hours almost mechanically, with a part
of his mind busy on the puzzle. How did it affect the course of action
he had marked out? Wasn't it even more necessary than ever now to go to
Walter Wheeler and tell him how things stood? He hated mystery. He liked
to walk in the middle of the road in the sunlight. But even stronger
than that was a growing feeling that he needed a sane and normal
judgment on his situation; a fresh viewpoint and some unprejudiced
advice.

He visited David before he left, and he was very gentle with him. In
view of this new development he saw David from a different angle, facing
and dreading something imminent, and it came to him with a shock that
he might have to clear things up to save David. The burden, whatever it
was, was breaking him.

He had telephoned, and Mr. Wheeler was waiting for him. Walter Wheeler
thought he knew what was coming, and he had well in mind what he was
going to sa