ace, said in a quiet tone: "If I am to help you,
you must try to tell me just what has happened."

He made an impatient gesture. "Haven't I told you? She found that her
accomplice meant to speak, and rushed to town to forestall him."

Mrs. Ansell reflected. "But why--with his place at Saint Christopher's
secured--did Dr. Wyant choose this time to threaten her--if, as you
imagine, he's an accomplice?"

"Because he's a drug-taker, and she didn't wish him to have the place."

"She didn't wish it? But that does not look as if she were afraid. She
had only to hold her tongue!"

Mr. Langhope laughed sardonically. "It's not quite so simple. Amherst
was coming to town to tell me."

"Ah--_he_ knows?"

"Yes--and she preferred that I should have her version first."

"And what is her version?"

The furrows of misery deepened in Mr. Langhope's face. "Maria--don't ask
too much of me! I can't go over it again. She says she wanted to spare
my child--she says the doctors were keeping her alive, torturing her
uselessly, as a...a sort of scientific experiment.... She forced on me
the hideous details...."

Mrs. Ansell waited a moment.

"Well! May it not be true?"

"Wyant's version is different. _He_ says Bessy would have recovered--he
says Garford thought so too."

"And what does she answer? She denies it?"

"No. She admits that Garford was in doubt. But she says the chance was
too remote--the pain too bad...that's her cue, naturally!"

Mrs. Ansell, leaning back in her chair, with hands meditatively
stretched along its arms, gave herself up to silent consideration of the
fragmentary statements cast before her. The long habit of ministering to
her friends in moments of perplexity and distress had given her an
almost judicial keenness in disentangling and coordinating facts
incoherently presented, and in seizing on the thread of motive that
connected them; but she had never before been confronted with a
situation so poignant in itself, and bearing so intimately on her
personal feelings; and she needed time to free her thoughts from the
impending rush of emotion.

At last she raised her head and said: "Why did Mr. Amherst let her come
to you, instead of coming himself?"

"He knows nothing of her being here. She persuaded him to wait a day,
and as soon as he had gone to the mills this morning she took the first
train to town."

"Ah----" Mrs. Ansell murmured thoughtfully; and Mr. Langhope rejoined,
with a conclusive gest