The minister sprang into the cab alone. He no longer wanted the aid of a stranger; the darkling streets seemed to glide past him, and not he past them, as he dashed on at last to find his sister, this time there could be no mistake. After they had threaded several obscure streets, the driver came to a sudden pause, got off his box, and touched his hat with an alarmed look. "I can't drive up to the very 'ouse, sir--there's a crowd around the door; they do say as something has happened. I hope it ain't to any of your friends?" said the cabman. Vincent flung the door open as he was speaking, and rushed out. A horrified and excited crowd was besieging the door of the shabby public-house to which he had been brought. Seeing his hasty arrival, and the passionate anxiety in his eyes, the crowd gave way before him, recognising his right of entry; the very policeman at the door yielded to him in the force of his passion. "What is it?" he cried, aware of putting away some women and babies from the door with mechanical kindness, but unconscious that he had stumbled up the steps like a man in a dream, and was demanding an answer to his question with an almost wild vehemence. The question was answered by a dozen eager voices. It was murder--murder! He could make out nothing but the word in the confusion of many speakers and of his own mind. Nobody opposed his entrance or asked what business he had there. He sprang up the stairs in two or three steps, pressed forward to a half-open door, within which he saw some people assembled, and, unawares thrusting aside a man who stopped him, went into that chamber of death. Several people were around the bed--one, a surgeon, occupied with the prostrate figure there. Vincent, over the heads of the spectators, gazed with burning eyes at this horrible spectacle. Susan herself, whom he did not expect to find there, nor could associate in any way with such a scene, faded out of his mind as he gazed with haggard face and horror-stricken soul at the shattered head, bound up in bloody-bandages, scarce recognisable except by sharp eyes of love or hate, which rested on that mean pillow. He asked no questions for the moment. To him alone the business needed no explanation. He was not even surprised--he stood gazing in a momentary trance of horror at the lamentable sight. It was a wretched room, shabby and meagre, such a place as only terror could have driven Mildmay to. Villain as he was, his punishment had begun before that pistol-shot brought it to a climax--even in his success he had been conscious that she would keep her word. The policeman at the door touched Vincent on the sleeve, just as he turned from the dreadful spectacle before him. "Nobody is allowed in here but for a good reason," said this man, gazing suspiciously at the stranger; "unless you knows something about it, or have come to identify the poor gentleman, or are of some use somehow, I can't let you stay here."