It had been Brian’s business to “shadow” his family enemy, and this cab-driving plan was only one out of many plots woven by the moving and directing spirit of the Carewes, old Sarah, to get her prey into her hands. No suspicion of his danger crossed Sir Philip’s mind as he let himself be rapidly driven eastward. He was longing to revenge himself by extra harshness of treatment upon his daughter Stella for daring to escape from his control and send a substitute in her stead to be wedded to Lord Carthew. Suddenly, while these malevolent thoughts filled his mind, a violent lurch of the cab hurled him upon his hands and knees; the next moment a blow in the chest from the shaft of a heavy van into which the cab had been deliberately driven, felled him, stunned and bleeding, as he attempted to rise. He heard the crash of glass, the noise of loud talking; then insensibility came to dull the exquisite pain he was suffering, and he knew no more until he opened his eyes in a mean and squalid room, and became conscious that several people were standing round his bed, and that the cracked and quavering voice of a very old woman was sounding close to his ear. “Make him conscious--make him conscious for a bit, dear, good doctor, before he dies. You see, he’s a relation of mine; he married the daughter of my boy Hiram--oh, you needn’t look surprised! Sixty years ago _I_ was pretty enough for a swell to have married _me_.” “Doctor,” muttered the injured man, “where am I? And what has happened to me?” “You have had a very serious accident--a heavy van ran into your cab in a street not far from here. This is Elizabeth Street, Whitechapel.” “Let me be moved at once to my house in Berkeley Square.” “Impossible. It would be madness to move you in your present state.” “Shall I die?” “I hope not. I cannot say. But you must be prepared.”