this, his gaze strayed
downward to where one little slippered foot peeped out from the civet
furs.

Leroux suppressed a gasp. He had caught a glimpse of a bare ankle!

He crossed to his writing-table, and seated himself, glancing sideways
at this living mystery. Suddenly she began, in a voice tremulous and
scarcely audible:--

"Mr. Leroux, at a great--at a very great personal risk, I have come
to-night. What I have to ask of you--to entreat of you, will... will"...

Two bare arms emerged from the fur, and she began clutching at her
throat and bosom as though choking--dying.

Leroux leapt up and would have run to her; but forcing a ghastly smile,
she waved him away again.

"It is all right," she muttered, swallowing noisily. But frightful
spasms of pain convulsed her, contorting her pale face.

"Some brandy--!" cried Leroux, anxiously.

"If you please," whispered the visitor.

She dropped her arms and fell back upon the chesterfield, insensible.

II

MIDNIGHT AND MR. KING

Leroux clutched at the corner of the writing-table to steady himself
and stood there looking at the deathly face. Under the most favorable
circumstances, he was no man of action, although in common with the rest
of his kind he prided himself upon the possession of that presence of
mind which he lacked. It was a situation which could not have alarmed
"Martin Zeda," but it alarmed, immeasurably, nay, struck inert with
horror, Martin Zeda's creator.

Then, in upon Leroux's mental turmoil, a sensible idea intruded itself.

"Dr. Cumberly!" he muttered. "I hope to God he is in!"

Without touching the recumbent form upon the chesterfield, without
seeking to learn, without daring to learn, if she lived or had died,
Leroux, the tempo of his life changed to a breathless gallop, rushed
out of the study, across the entrance hail, and, throwing wide the flat
door, leapt up the stair to the flat above--that of his old friend, Dr.
Cumberly.

The patter of the slippered feet grew faint upon the stair; then, as
Leroux reached the landing above, became inaudible altogether.

In Leroux's study, the table-clock ticked merrily on, seeming to hasten
its ticking as the hand crept around closer and closer to midnight.
The mosaic shade of the lamp mingled reds and blues and greens upon the
white ceiling above and poured golden light upon the pages of manuscript
strewn about beneath it. This was a typical work-room of a literary man
having the ear