"Sir, if I might dare to say a word"--and Neal glanced round with caution on all sides as he spoke--"I'd ask whether it was given in fairness?" "What do you mean, Neal?" "There's not a person in the world I'd venture to whisper such a thing to, sir, except yourself; but I doubt whether it _was_ given in fairness. I have a reason for doubting it, sir; a particular reason. It makes me sick, sir, to think that there was some unfair play brought to work, and that it took her life." "Unfair play on the part of whom?" asked Oswald. "I am not sure that I dare say, sir, even to you. And it might be looked upon as--as--fancy on my part. One thing is certain, sir, that but for that chloroform being given to her, she'd be alive now." "Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray gave the chloroform, Neal," observed Mr. Oswald Cray, in a somewhat distant tone--for it was not to Neal he would admit any doubt, scarcely condescend to hear any, of the judgment of the surgeons. "They know better about such things than we do." "Yes, sir," answered Neal, as drily as he dared. "Mr. Cray, I am sure, did _his_ best, but he has not had the judgment and experience of my master. Anyway, it seems it was the chloroform that killed her." "As it has killed others before her--when administered in all deliberate judgment by surgeons of as high repute and practice as Dr. Davenal. The issues of life and death are not even in a doctor's hands, Neal. Goodnight." "Goodnight to you, sir." Oswald Cray walked slowly towards his temporary home, the "Apple Tree," half bewildered with the conjectural views opened out to him, and not the least with that last hint of Neal's. He could not get over that giving of the chloroform by Dr. Davenal in the very teeth of his expressed opinion against it. He had supposed, when he first heard of the cause of death, that this contradiction would be explained away: but, instead of that it was more unexplainable than before. There was Mark's confused manner, his covert attempts to avoid inquiry; there was Dr. Davenal's positive denial to satisfy it; there was the man Neal's curious hint. Oswald Cray felt as one in a maze, trying to get at something which eluded his grasp. How the imagination runs riot, how utterly unamenable it is to the rules and regulations of sober control, we most of us know.