"Good-night, Mr Chartley," she said quietly; but he did not take the hand, only turned away, walking rapidly along the street, while, fighting hard to keep from bursting into a violent fit of sobbing, Janet hurried up to her room, to find her brother looking haggard and wild as he slowly paced the floor. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. MARK HEATH IN THE DARK. "No--no--no!" Always the same determined answer to the declarations of Janet that some steps should be taken to investigate the affairs of the night on which her brother had first reached London. "No," he said; "I will have nothing done. Let me get well, and away from here. I've escaped with my life." "And what will you do, Mark?" asked Janet, as she sat by his side. "Try again," he said. "But I must first get well." He had heard that the doctor was ill, but everything else had been kept from him, till one evening, as he was seated by the fire at Janet's neat little lodgings, and his sister was called down to see a visitor. She had a suspicion of who it was, and found Richmond waiting. "Come up and see him." Richmond hesitated. "I must not stay long," she said. "My father frets for me if I am away." "And I am situated almost the same. Mark does not like to be left. Come up, dear, and help me to persuade him that he ought to employ the police." "No, no! don't talk of them," said Richmond, with a shudder. "I want the horror at our house forgotten, and they keep reminding me that the law does not sleep." "Why, Rich, how strangely you talk!" "Strangely, dear! No. Only it comes back like a nightmare ever since that terrible affair, so soon as it is mentioned. I seem to be wandering about the house in misery, fever, and pain, trying to see through a mist that I cannot penetrate. I don't know how it is or what it means, but I have this horrible thought troubling me, that I came down that night to go to the surgery, and that I saw something." "Saw something! Saw what?" "Ah! that is what I cannot tell," said Rich with a shudder. "I was better this morning, and more hopeful. My poor father seemed a little clearer in his mind, but the past is all a blank to him." "He knew me, dear, when I came yesterday." "Oh, yes! and he knows me well enough. He talks sensibly about what is going on around him. But that night when he was struck down, the blows seemed to break away the connection between the present and the past. The physician, who has seen him, says very little, but I can see that he considers the case hopeless." "Oh, don't say that, dear! We must all hope. I hope to be something better some day than a poor teacher. Come up now, and help me to persuade Mark to have in the police." "No, no!" cried Rich hastily. "Why not, dear? Think what it means if it is true about the diamonds, and we could get them back."