THE EAGLE EYE OF THE HOUSE DETECTIVE George began at once to shout "Hullo!" into the instrument. Finally he got a reply from Suite Three. It was the doctor himself who answered the insistent call from the hotel desk. "Yes, this is George!" ejaculated the clerk. "Come down here to the office at once, Doc. Something's happened to Mr. White---- "What is it? I dunno. He's fallen in a fit--looks awful--face as black as your hat!" The clerk was excited and he spread it on rather thick. Still, White did look bad. George came away from the telephone. "He'll be right down," he said aloud. "I guess your wife's scared, Mr. Ryder. I heard her scream." Ryder was immediately troubled. His own nerves were jumping. No wonder if Ruth should become frightened. There was nothing he could do for White, and he started for the stairway. Half way up the flight he passed the doctor, bag in hand, charging down. This was certainly a busy night for the hotel physician. And then, as Ryder reached the top of the stairway, he saw another figure coming along the corridor--a white-faced, gasping woman, with eyes like coals, rushing like a whirlwind into his arms--a whirlwind of laces and ruffles and ribbons, with a boudoir cap over one ear and her tiny bare feet twinkling in and out under her trailing robes. It was Ruth, and she was the picture of fright. "My heavens!" gasped Ryder, "what's the matter, girlie? What's frightened you so?" "Oh!" She saw him then and clutched him tightly about the neck. "I--I thought something had happened to you. They said so--I heard the clerk speaking through the 'phone to the doctor----" "Oh, no," said Ryder soothingly. "It was another man. He was taken ill down there in the office." He could not tell her, now that she was so disturbed, that it was the stranger who had already annoyed her. "Why, sweetheart, don't sob so! I'm all right. Don't you see I am? Never was sick a day that I remember in my whole life. You couldn't----" He looked over her head, and there was the sharp face of Miss Solomons at the parlor door. The sharp eye of the house detective seemed devouring them both. Ryder felt a shocking desire to consign both the house detective and Mrs. Judson to the same place--and that a spot not often mentioned in polite company. But to Ruth he murmured: "Brace up, girlie! It's all right--it's all right, I tell you. You've been overdoing. This confounded Mrs. Judson has been too much for you." She still clung tightly to him, sobbing, her head buried on his shoulder. He gathered her up in his arms, holding her yielding body close against his breast, and carried her swiftly along the corridor. As he passed the parlor he glared at Miss Solomons. Once he halted to pick up one of the slippers Ruth had lost in her flight down the hall. The other was in the doorway of their suite. He strode in with her, kicked shut the door, and placed Ruth tenderly upon the couch. The heavy lady was not in sight.