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said. "You must accept this decision as final. You have had patience for three years; exercise it a little longer, and—God knows, perhaps you may be rewarded. Anyhow, you must trust me to do the best I can for Tollemache. Go back to the Métropole. I will let you know as soon as I have any news. You will, I am sure, trust me?"

"Oh, fully," she replied, tears suddenly filling her lovely eyes. "But remember that I love him—I love him with a very deep love."

There was something noble in the way she made this emphatic statement. I took her hand and led her from the room. A moment later she had left me, and I was hurrying on foot to Mercer's Hotel.

The manager was waiting for me in the hall. He had the dressing-case in his hand.

"Shall I send this by a commissionaire?" he asked.

"No," I replied, "I should prefer to take it myself. Tell the porter to call a hansom for me immediately."

The man looked immensely relieved.

"That is good of you, doctor," he said; "the fact is, I don't like the sound of that address."

"Nor do I," I replied.

"Do you know, Dr. Halifax, that the young lady—Miss Sinclair, she called herself—came here again this morning?"

"I have just seen her," I answered. The hall porter now came to tell me that the hansom was at the door. A moment later I was driving to Balham, the dressing-case on my knee.

From Mercer's Hotel to this suburb is a distance of several miles, but fortunately the horse was fresh and we got over the ground quickly. As I drove along my meditations were full of strange apprehensions.

Tollemache had now been absent from Mercer's Hotel for two days and three nights. What kind of place was Harvey Road? What kind of house was 110? Why did Tollemache want his dressing-case? And why, if he did want it, could not he fetch it himself? The case had been a favourite of his—it had been a present from his mother, who was now dead. He had shown it to me one evening, and had expatiated with pride on its unique character. It was a sort of multum in parvo, containing many pockets and drawers not ordinarily found in a dressing-case. I recalled to mind the evening when Tollemache had brought it out of his adjacent bedroom and opened it for my benefit. All its accoutrements were heavily mounted in richly embossed silver. There was a special flap into which his cheque-book fitted admirably. Under the flap was a drawer, which he pulled open and regaled my astonished eyes with a quantity of loose diamonds and rubies which lay in the bottom.

"I picked up the diamonds in Cape Town," he said, "and the rubies in Ceylon. One or two of the latter are, I know, of exceptional value, and when I bought them I hoped that they might be of use—"

Here he broke off abruptly, coloured, sighed, and slipped the drawer back into its place.

It was easy to guess where his thoughts were.

Now that I had seen Miss Sinclair, I felt that I could better understand poor Tollemache. Such a girl was worth a hard fight to win. No wonder Tollemache hated himself when he felt his own want of moral strength, and knew that the prize of such a love as hers might never be his.

I knew well that the delay in the delivery of the note was terribly against fellow's the poor chance of recovery, and as I drove quickly to Balham,