“A long way on!” he answered, and wondered at himself. He had never heard the expression until a minute before, when the nurse had used it on the stairs. “But we shall bring him back,” he added--“perhaps. We won’t waste time discussing that. I have to apologise for taking possession of your house in this extraordinary manner. We cannot thank you enough for allowing us to do so. I should be glad to explain.” Harriet said “Sit down, won’t you?” in the same voice that had set Stubbs peering into corners. She found a match and lighted the centre lamp. The big man said nothing. “My name is Gardner. I am a Londoner--Wigmore’s medical adviser, and incidentally his oldest friend. Before he left town, last month, I told him--though he didn’t need telling--that his voice was killing him. I warned him that any out-of-the-way effort would probably finish him; that in any case he would not last another year unless he took instant precautions. He had just had a big concert in London, and I knew--what I knew. He promised me to throw up all his engagements and come down here for absolute rest, and I let him go because I believed he would keep his word. On Monday night I discovered by the merest chance that he was to sing here on Tuesday, and I left London before six in the morning--_we_ left London--but we were too late to stop him. He would neither have listened to us then, nor forgiven us ever after. God! but I thought he would die before the thing was through! _That_ was mad and bad enough, but on top of it he goes and plays in a hockey-match, after leading us a dance round half the county to prevent us finding out. What’s at the back of it all I can’t possibly imagine! Perhaps _you_ can. Who is the insensate fool that led him to fling away his last little gasp of life?” Stubbs stirred uneasily. He thought Dr. Gardner should be told that such language was unfitting the company of both a past and present Rur’l D’trict C’cillor. The big man by the window still said nothing, and nobody introduced him. His eyes travelled from one face to another with pathetic, questioning intensity. And, at last, “_I_ am the insensate fool!” said Harriet, in the voice of Eve after the Fall. “_I_ bullied him to sing. _I_ pestered him to play. I told him that all he wanted was fresh air and hopping about. He tried to say no, but I said yes, and he always did what I told him. I made him.” The doctor drew in his breath as if physically hurt. He struck his hands together with a little movement of passionate regret. “Then you will probably have the satisfaction of knowing that you have killed the finest singer in England.” She winced sharply, but surprise came uppermost. “I don’t understand! We knew he was a singer, of course, but not of any importance. His name is never in the papers.”