coming to lay supper. But when the door opened there was a
mysterious silence; Alice looked up and saw the expected face,
wearing, however, so strange an expression that she rose with sudden
fear.

'Can I speak to you, please, miss?'

The dialogue out in the passage was brief. A messenger had just
arrived with the tidings that Dr. Madden, driving back from Kingston
Seymour, had been thrown from his vehicle and lay insensible at a
roadside cottage.

* * *

For some time the doctor had been intending to buy a new horse; his
faithful old roadster was very weak in the knees. As in other
matters, so in this, postponement became fatality; the horse
stumbled and fell, and its driver was flung head forward into the
road. Some hours later they brought him to his home, and for a day
or two there were hopes that he might rally. But the sufferer's
respite only permitted him to dictate and sign a brief will; this
duty performed, Dr. Madden closed his lips for ever.





CHAPTER II

ADRIFT