Chester's mind was made up on the instant, and he turned to Isabel. "Heaven bless you for this!" he cried passionately. "I cannot explain now, only that it is a case of great emergency. Take Miss Clareborough with you, and keep her until I write or come. I do not deserve this at your hands, but your presence here is like that of some good angel. You will take her home?" "Yes," she said softly, as she avoided his eyes. "Listen, then," he whispered anxiously. "These people below have come in search of her, and she must not fall into their hands. I will go and keep, them in conversation, while you get her away at once." "I will," replied Isabel, calmly. "Heaven bless you!" he cried passionately, and then he turned to Marion, who looked quite exhausted. "Go with her," he said--"at once. You will be safe there until I come." "No," she replied despairingly. "It would be better for you--for her-- that we never meet again." He caught her hand in his. "Refuse this, and I will not answer for the consequence," he whispered angrily. "Remember you are mine." He hurried out, trying to be perfectly calm, met the representatives of the law in the hall, and signed to them to come into the consulting-room, and closed the door. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. THE CLIMAX OF A MADNESS. "One minute. Sit down while I attend to this." The inspector took a chair, but his follower, evidently a plain clothes' officer, remained standing by the door; while, as if bound to make a memorandum of some important case, Chester took ink and paper and began writing rapidly for a few minutes, listening intently the while for the sound of steps upon the stairs, every nerve on the strain, as he wondered at the patience with which the two men waited. At last, with his heart throbbing painfully, Chester heard a faint rustling sound outside, and the front door close, just as the inspector broke the silence. "Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but this is a case of emergency. I should be glad if you can come at once." "Come at once?" "Yes," said the inspector, coolly. "Only in the next street. Case of attempted suicide. Doctor with the party wants a second opinion." Chester drew a deep breath, wrote another line of incoherent words, and then, having hard work to speak composedly, he rose and said-- "I am at your service now." He followed the inspector to the door, and feeling half stunned at what seemed like so strange an escape, he went to the house where, in a mad fit, the occupant had taken desperate measures to rid himself of a life which had grown hateful; and while Chester aided his colleagues for the next hour in the difficult task of trying to combat the poison taken, he could not help feeling that this might have been his own case if matters had gone otherwise, for despair would have prompted him also to take a life that had become horrible--an existence that he could not have borne.