He had spoken with a certain bitterness which it was easy for me to understand. Eminent as he was, unquestioned as his authority had now become, I knew that Tarleton was not popular with the medical profession. His baronetcy had been given late, and given grudgingly. Perhaps he had recognized in me something that reminded him of his own youth, and had taken a generous resolution to help me in consequence. Certainly his treatment of me since had been more like that of a father than an employer. He had said a good deal more that I hadn’t forgotten and that I was least likely to forget just then. His manner had been very grave as he dwelt upon the confidential character of a great deal of his work. “If you are to assist me in my most important cases, and to qualify yourself for succeeding me later on, as I hope you will, you must learn to be more discreet than in almost any other line of life. You will find yourself in possession of secrets that compromise the honour of great families; men in the highest positions will hold their reputations at your mercy; the safety of the State itself may sometimes depend on your silence. I know of at least one man sitting in the House of Lords who owes his peerage to an undiscovered murder; and what is more, he knows of my knowledge. I make it a rule if possible never to go into any company where he is likely to be present, and he takes the same care to avoid me. But if he ever thought it necessary to his safety, that man would no more hesitate about taking my life than he did about taking his nephew’s--a boy twelve years old.” No doubt Tarleton had gauged my disposition pretty well before he chose me for his assistant, and he knew that I should be more attracted than repelled by such hints as that. My blood tingled at the prospect opening before me. The days of Richard III and the Bloody Tower seemed to have come again. And I was to be behind the scenes tracing the midnight assassin at his work in the heart of modern London, and in the very purlieus of her palaces. It was enough to sate the greediest imagination. “I mustn’t conceal from you,” my kindly chief had gone on to tell me, “that I have had to overcome strong objections to your appointment. Sir James Ponsonby considers that you are very young to be entrusted with such serious responsibilities. You can’t wonder if the Home Office has taken some precautions. I submitted your name a month ago, and I only received permission to make you the offer yesterday. I have very little doubt that you have been under observation most of the time between.” This was the part of the conversation that had come back to me most vividly that night when I was struggling frantically towards the accusing bell. For the whole sting in the communication that my memory thrust so pitilessly before me was in the last condition, the very condition I had been driven to break that night.