It is scarcely necessary to say that the lady and gentleman whose advent so upset Mrs. Merrick were none other than Mr. and Mrs. Stephens who had come up to London for the operatic season and were staying at the Langham Hotel. Taking advantage of the confusion, Stephens hurried his wife along to her room, giving no further answer to her many and wondering enquiries than: “Oh, it’s only the heat; don’t mix yourself up with all these people,” and, without allowing time for remonstrance or further enquiry, he put a stop to all questioning by hurrying the delicate creature along till he deposited her, breath less, in an easy chair. Going out into the corridor he tried to discover how matters stood, but the woman he dreaded to meet had been borne to her room and medical attendance had been summoned. This Mr. Stephens learned from a waiter; so, determined to deport himself as if he knew nothing of the cause of the lady’s illness, and was as much puzzled at the occurrence as the rest of those who had either witnessed it or come on the scene soon afterwards, he returned to his wife, and, throwing himself into a chair, pretended to read. But his wife, obtuse though she possibly was with regard to the fainting lady, something had struck her about the manner her husband assumed. She could not get over it, and when at the table d’hote with her husband listened attentively to the conservation of two gentlemen who were sitting vis-à-vis. One enquired after the health of the lady who had taken so suddenly ill on the landing in the morning. The younger of the two gentlemen expressed his gratitude to the other for assisting his mother so kindly, who would have, but for his assistance, fallen down stairs, but was somewhat better now. He said the Doctor had not been able to ascertain the cause of her sudden illness, and, as his mother had always been blessed with such good health, he himself could not account for it. In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Stephens had been listeners to the conversation when all of a sudden a curious, gurgling noise was heard, a chair was overturned, and Mr. Stephens was stretched on the floor in a dying condition, blood streaming from his mouth. There was a great commotion in the dining-room, and it was thought at first he had swallowed a bone and was choking; but the physicians who arrived, three in number, pronounced it a rupture of a blood-vessel and applied at once the necessary remedies, but gave little hope of his recovery. As soon as his condition permitted a removal, he was carried, by the advice of the doctor, to a private hospital near by, where his delicate wife also preferred to go, and nothing more was heard of the dying stranger, for a while anyhow.