Creede was too much of a chemist to have imagined so idiotic a possibility in his normal mental state. But the shock had turned his reasoning faculties momentarily into those of a scared child. With ever-increasing difficulty he dragged his brother’s thin body out of the laboratory and out of the house onto the stretch of brick-paved walk. The exertion was almost too much for him. It used up nearly all the fictitious strength bred of shock. He stood panting over the body and striving not to topple to earth beside it. Then he heard the rattling approach of an automobile. Through the tangle of boxwood boughs he could see the car stop at the gate. In ungovernable panic he staggered back into the house. There, shutting the front door softly behind him, he sank down on a settle in the hall, fighting for self-control. In a few minutes he had conquered the unreasoning fright which had made him shun meeting any interlopers. He had caused the death of his brother. He had done it to save his own life. He was not ashamed. He was not sorry. He was not minded to slink behind closed doors when it was his duty as a white man to confess what he had done. Staggering again to his feet, he made for the front door. With all that was left of his departing powers he managed to open it and to reach the threshold-stone outside, there to confront his three old friends and the crazily welcoming collie. Then everything had gone black. CHAPTER XIX A MAN AND A MAID AND ANOTHER MAN “I’m just as glad Doris wasn’t here to listen to this,” commented Miss Gregg, breaking the awed pause which followed Dr. Lawton’s recital. “For a perfectly innocent and kindly girl she seems to have stirred up no end of mischief. After the manner of perfectly innocent and kindly girls. She’d be the first to grieve over it, of course. But a billion Grief-Power never yet had the dynamic force to lift one ounce of any bad situation one inch in one century.” “Well,” said Lawton, reaching for his rusty black hat and his rustier black bag, “I’ve wasted too much time already, gabbling here. I must get to my miserable round of calls unless I want my patients to get well before I arrive. Good-by. Clive will be all right now. He has had the absolute rest he needed. He’ll be as good as new in another week or so. It’s lucky all this has happened before Oz had a chance to squander more than about $50,000 of the lad’s fortune. He’ll have enough left to live on in comfort. To marry on, too.” Off plodded the old gentleman, leaving Thaxton Vail scowling unhappily after him. “To marry on,” muttered Vail under his breath, not knowing he spoke aloud. “Yes,” chimed in Miss Gregg brightly. “Enough to marry on. Almost enough to be engaged on. He’s a lucky man!” “He is,” agreed Vail dully. “And a mighty white man, too. One of the very best.” “Yes,” assented Miss Gregg with fervor, smiling maliciously on her victim. “One of the very best. Doris thinks so too.” “I know she does,” sighed Vail.