Against the man Shaw, who had so cleverly misled her into the honest belief that he adored her, there arose within me a deep and angry hatred. Why was he not there, knowing Asta's precarious condition? His excuse of enforced attendance at the Petty Sessions was no doubt an ingenious one. Little did he dream that before the occurrence Asta had summoned me, and for that reason I was there at her side. So strange had been all the circumstances from that moment when the man of mystery--Melvill Arnold--had breathed his last, that I had become utterly bewildered. And this amazing occurrence in the night now staggered me. Only one person had solved the mystery of the shadowy hand, and he, alas I had not lived to reveal what, no doubt, was a terrible truth. In the corridor I stood discussing my beloved's condition in low, bated whispers with the fussy country practitioner, a man of the old fox-hunting school--for nearly every one rides to hounds in that grass-country. He had already telephoned for Doctor Petherbridge, in Northampton, to come for consultation, and was now expecting him to come over in his car. "I have done all I can, Mr Kemball," he said. "But as we don't know the cause, the exact remedy is rather difficult to determine. Every symptom is of brain trouble through fright." "Exactly the same symptoms as those you observed in Nicholson!" I remarked. Whereat he slowly nodded in the affirmative, and again stroked his rosy, clean-shaven chin. "Well, doctor," I said, "I intend to make it my business to investigate the cause of this peculiar phenomenon." And I sat down and wrote an urgent telegram to Cardew, who was, I knew, now stationed at Aldershot. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. ANOTHER REVELATION. The dark anxious hours of that dismal autumn morning went slowly by. Doctor Petherbridge arrived in hot haste from Northampton, and had a long and earnest consultation with Redwood. Both men were greatly puzzled. I met them after a long and eager wait, when they emerged in silence from the sick-room. "We are doing all we can, Mr Kemball," declared Petherbridge. "The young lady is, I regret to say, in a most precarious condition--in fact, in a state of collapse." I begged him to remain, and he did so. For several hours they were constantly at her bedside, while Mrs Howard, anxious and solicitous for the welfare of her young mistress, expressed surprise that Mr Shaw did not return. My own suspicion was that he had already fled, yet it proved ungrounded, for at half-past two he arrived in eager haste, in a hired carriage, his car having broken down. Both doctors came forward and explained that the condition of Miss Asta had in no way improved. She was suffering from some obscure malady which they had diagnosed as affecting both heart and brain. "Poor girl! Poor girl!" he cried, tears welling in his eyes. "Do your best for her, I pray of you both," he added. "She's all the world to me. Can't we summon a specialist?"