"Stop, sir!" cried Doctor Lawrence, in a stern voice, as he caught the speaker by the shoulder. "As a physician, I know your condition better than you know it yourself. I have given you fair warning of the danger of giving way to anger like this. You will not heed my remonstrances, so now I insist upon your being calm." "Calm! How can a man be calm?" "When he is goading himself on to an apoplectic fit? I don't know, sir; but you have to be calm, or I must give you some drug that will make you." "No, no," cried the young man, with a gesture full of horror. "Then obey me. Your conduct is suicidal, and I feel as if I were assisting at a murder. You had better sleep here to-night." Saul turned upon him with so fierce a gesture that the doctor gave way. "Very well; I will see you to your apartments in town. Good-night, Hampton. No fresh clue, I suppose?" The lawyer shook his head as he walked down towards the gate with them. "None whatever. It is a very mysterious affair; and I feel now as if we ought to place the matter in the hands of the police." "Feel giddy, Mr Saul?" said the doctor, for his companion had suddenly struck against his arm. "I beg pardon, no; I nearly fell. The worst of these country places. I trod on a slug or toad, and only having one arm at liberty, I--" "Committed murder--involuntarily, of course," said the doctor with a chucks. "Well, things that are in one's way should get out of one's way." Saul made no reply, but he breathed hard, went silently down the station road, and then to himself: "Or be put out of one's way," and he started again as if fearful that his words had been heard. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. "DOWN, BRUNO! DOWN!" "No, Denton; he does not seem to get better," said Gertrude, as she knelt beside Bruno in the stable, the dog resting his muzzle in her hand, while he blinked patiently; and, from time to time, uttered a very human sigh. "Oh, but he is better, my dear, and gradually growing stronger. He ate quite a big basin of bread and milk this morning." "So cruel to injure a poor dumb beast like that." "Yes, my dear; but I'll be bound to say Bruno left his mark upon whoever it was, and serve him right." The dog whined uneasily, and opened his eyes to stare about him, as if he had been half dreaming, and imagined there was something near. "Poor Bruno, then?" said Gertrude caressingly. "Denton, doesn't all this seem very strange to you about--about--" "Master George, my dear? Well, yes; but I can hardly forgive myself for thinking that other was the darling little fellow I was so proud to have in the house. But there, we are all right now." Gertrude signed. "Why, my dear, you oughtn't to do that. Now, if it was the other, with his dreadful ways of sitting up with Mr Saul over the whiskey, and the finding him asleep in his chair at seven o'clock in the morning, you might sigh."