"You will--you will prevent! Monsieur the Doctor, you are a hero. You are alone, you don't know where, with you don't know whom; it is one o'clock in the morning, no one in your household knows where to find you, and yet you will prevent! You stand in a house where your body might remain undiscovered for years; but still you defy, you threaten! By Heaven, my noble physician, you are brave!" He loosened his hold and leaned against the improvised table, laughing still in the same suppressed manner, and glancing at the young man, who replied to this dreadful mirth with a sarcastic smile. George Brudenell, almost staggering as the strong hands released him, was stupefied for the moment. He was no coward, but he suddenly realized the utter helplessness of his position. Where was he? He did not know. Who were these men, who met alone in this deserted house at midnight? He did not know. He was a weaker man than either; and how many more of them might there not be hidden within hearing distance now? If they chose to do him violence--to murder him, in short--he would be totally incapable of offering any adequate resistance. He was trapped, and he felt it; for the moment the knowledge appalled him, but he strove to regain both his wits an courage. "You have the advantage, sir," he said, addressing the elder man; "and you use your superiority of numbers well. As for this man, you take the responsibility if you move him. It is none of mine! I have done what I can, and all I can. Show me to the door." "A moment, sir, if you please!" The younger man looked at the elder with a glance of remonstrance, as though he thought his companion in his last speech and action had gone too far. "You are forgetting an important item, sir--your fee." "I want no fee, and will take none! Show me to the door, I say!" He turned toward the doorway. By himself he would have stumbled up the stairs down which he had been enticed; but the elder man seized him by the shoulder. He spoke now in a tone almost as courteous as that which he had just used had been insulting. "Your pardon! A moment, sir, if you please. You were called here----" "Trapped here!" interposed the Doctor angrily. "Well, well"--the other spoke blandly, soothingly, as though to a restive child--"trapped here, if you will. A word--what does it matter? Permit me to finish. There are two things to do, sir, and you have done but one." "I will do nothing more!" George Brudenell was thoroughly master of himself again now, and he flung off the hand upon his shoulder. The young man moved and stood between him and the door, and the elder resumed coolly: "A difficult thing, since it has something like death to answer for"--with a glance at the senseless disfigured form upon the couch; "but an easy thing--a mere bagatelle to a man such as you--a skillful chemist, a practiced handler of chemicals. Monsieur, you will do what yonder bungler failed to do--you will, if you please, combine these chemicals."