from her! Oh, why am I
only a little man? why am I not strong enough to fling the brutes out of
the window? Mistress! Mistress! is there nothing I can do to help you?"

These wild words poured from his lips in the solitude of his little
bedchamber. In the agony that he suffered, as the sense of Mrs. Wagner's
danger now forced itself on him, he rolled on the floor, and struck
himself with his clenched fists. And, again and again, he cried out to
her, "Mistress! Mistress! is there nothing I can do to help you?"

The strap that secured his keys became loosened, as his frantic movements
beat the leather bag, now on one side, and now on the other, upon the
floor. The jingling of the keys rang in his ears. For a moment, he lay
quite still. Then, he sat up on the floor. He tried to think calmly.
There was no candle in the room. The nearest light came from a lamp on
the landing below. He got up, and went softly down the stairs. Alone on
the landing, he held up the bag and looked at it. "There's something in
my mind, trying to speak to me," he said to himself. "Perhaps, I shall
find it in here?"

He knelt down under the light, and shook out the keys on the landing.

One by one he ranged them in a row, with a single exception. The key of
the desk happened to be the first that he took up. He kissed it--it was
_her_ key--and put it back in the bag. Placing the others before him, the
duplicate key was the last in the line. The inscription caught his eye.
He held it to the light and read "Pink-Room Cupboard."

The lost recollection now came back to him in intelligible form. The
"remedy" that Madame Fontaine had locked up--the precious "remedy" made
by the wonderful master who knew everything--was at his disposal. He had
only to open the cupboard, and to have it in his own possession.

He threw the other keys back into the bag. They rattled as he ran down
the lower flight of stairs. Opposite to the offices, he stopped and
buckled them tight with the strap. No noise! Nothing to alarm Mrs.
Housekeeper! He ascended the stairs in the other wing of the house, and
paused again when he approached Madame Fontaine's room. By this time, he
was in the perilous fever of excitement, which was still well remembered
among the authorities of Bedlam. Suppose the widow happened to be in her
room? Suppose she refused to let him have the "remedy"?

He looked at the outstretched fingers of his right hand. "I am strong
enough to throttle a woman," he