Before being admitted to the ward Hermia was shown into an ante-room, where she was presently joined by a middle-aged, ladylike person, with a strong yet kindly face, dressed in the usual Hospital uniform, whose name she afterwards found to be Miss Davis. From her Hermia learned that in the course of the preceding night Varrel had been brought in by the police, unconscious and apparently in a dying state. His story when he came to himself, was to the effect that while on his way to his lodgings he had been set upon by three men, who had somehow discovered that he had a considerable sum of money about him, and that in the fight which ensued he had not only been robbed, but stabbed in three places. His case was an utterly hopeless one, Miss Davis went on to say; he might possibly linger for two or three days, but should internal hemorrhage set in the end would come still more quickly. Then she went on to ask whether Hermia was a relative of the dying man, and on receiving a reply in the negative, requested her to make her interview as brief as possible, and especially to avoid all topics which would be likely in any way to excite the patient. After that she led the way into the ward, while Mr. Wingate awaited Hermia's return in the ante-room. Varrel's eyes lighted up the moment they rested on Hermia. His face was the face of one on the verge of the last great change, and the girl could not keep back her tears. She sat down by the side of his pallet, after which one of the attendants placed a large screen round them, so as to shut them in from the other patients. "You didn't think to see me so soon again, Miss Hermia, I'll be bound--nor I you!" began Varrel, with a dim smile, but speaking more clearly and strongly than Hermia would have thought possible for one in his condition. "However, here I am, and there's no help for it. It was the money that was the cause of it--the money you brought me. A sort of Nemesis. They--the men my life has been mixed up with of late--found out somehow I had it about me. The wonder is they left any life in me at all. But it's not for long. I know that I'm booked for the journey for which no return tickets are issued. Well, I'm not sorry--on my soul, I'm not!--that the end has come. But it was to talk about something very different that I sent for you, for since I've been lying here, I've made up my mind to tell all I know." He ceased, and lay for a little while with shut eyes. When he opened them it was seemingly to fix them on a flickering shadow flung by the lamplight on the ceiling. Suddenly a hollow voice spoke, "Miss Hermia, it was not John Brancker, but the man you see before you, who killed Mr. Hazeldine." Hermia's heart gave a great bound, and she caught her breath with a gasp like a drowning person. It seemed to her as if an ice-cold wind blew for a minute across her face. She shuddered, and involuntarily drew a little farther away from the dying man.