"if you persist in this conduct."

The threat had the desired effect. And Mrs. Manners quietly left the
room, and after a while as quietly came back again and sat down by the
fire, whispering to Aunt Lucy.

Fate, in some inexplicable way, had carried me into the enemy's country
and made me the guest of Mr. Marmaduke Manners. As I lay staring upward,
odd little bits of the past came floating to the top of my mind,
presently to be pieced together. The injuries Mr. Marmaduke had done me
were the first to collect, since I was searching for the cause of my
resentment against him. The incidents arrived haphazard as magic
lanthorn views, but very vivid. His denial of me before Mr. Dix, and his
treachery at Vauxhall, when he had sent me to be murdered. Next I felt
myself clutching the skin over his ribs in Arlington Street, when I had
flung him across the room in his yellow night-gown. That brought me to
the most painful scene of my life, when I had parted with Dorothy at the
top of the stairs. Afterward followed scraps of the years at Gordon's
Pride, and on top of them the talk with McAndrews. Here was the secret
I sought. The crash had come. And they were no longer in Mayfair, but
must have taken a house in some poorer part of London. This thought cast
me down tremendously.

And Dorothy! Had time changed her? 'Twas with that query on my lips I
fell asleep, to dream of the sun shining down on Carvel Hall and Wilmot
House; of Aunt Hester and Aunt Lucy, and a lass and a lad romping through
pleasant fields and gardens.

When I awoke it was broad day once more. A gentleman sat on the edge of
my bed. He had a queer, short face, ruddy as the harvest moon, and he
smiled good-humouredly when I opened my eyes.

"I bid you good morning, Mr. Carvel, for the first time since I have made
your acquaintance," said he. "And how do you feel, sir?"

"I have never felt better in my life," I replied, which was the whole
truth.

"Well, vastly well," says he, laughing, "prodigious well for a young man
who has as many holes in him as have you. Do you hear him, Mrs.
Manners?"

At that last word, I popped up to look about the room, and the doctor
caught hold of me with ludicrous haste. A pain shot through my body.

"Avast, avast, my hearty," cries he. "'Tis a miracle you can speak,
let alone carry your bed and walk for a while yet." And he turned to
Dorothy's mother, whom I beheld smiling at me. "You will give him the
physic, ma'am, at the