The Yellow Face

by Fred M. White

"I see, I see," he murmured. "Once you are yourself again, you can defy Anstruther; indeed, he would not know you at all. I have had to fight him at a terrible disadvantage. If only I could remove this terrible scourge from my face--then I could stand up to him, and his reign would not be for long. But events are pressing so fast that I could not possibly spare the time at present to follow out the treatment to which you have been subjected. But afterwards I shall be only too glad to place myself in the same hands that you have been through. The mere thought that some day or other I shall be able to walk the streets like any other man that God has made, fills me with such a joy that I could sit down and cry like a child.

"But why be so fearfully afraid of Anstruther?" Seymour asked.

"Because I am in his power," Ferris whispered. "I have done a great wrong in my time, and Anstruther knows it. That fiend seems to discover everything. Fortune has enabled me to redress the wrong, but Anstruther holds the proofs of my guilt. I really ought to have gone to my relatives and confessed everything, and defied him. But with a face like mine!"

"I understand," Seymour said grimly. "But, unless I am greatly mistaken----"

Seymour broke off suddenly, and snapped out the electric light. He took the astonished Ferris by the arm, and fairly bundled him into his bedroom. There was no time to explain. A fresh idea had suddenly come to Seymour, and he decided to put it through. His quick ear had told him that somebody was fumbling at the door of the sitting-room, and that somebody could be none other than Gillmore. The burglar had evidently not yet arrived, or Seymour would have heard something of the mysterious note. His idea now was to gain possession of the note and Gillmore at the same time.

"What on earth is the matter?" Ferris whispered.

Seymour clicked his lips for silence. He could hear Gillmore in the sitting-room by now. He slipped from the bedroom into the corridor, and approached his foe by the other door. But apparently Gillmore's ears were as quick as those of his antagonist. He pitched the letter on the table, and, seeing that escape by way of the door had been cut off, coolly flung up the window and fell headlong out. Seymour repressed a shuddering cry. Gillmore evidently cruelly miscalculated the distance to the ground, for as Seymour looked out of the window he could hear a series of heavy groans below. It was obviously his duty to give the alarm and send for a doctor without delay, but this he hesitated to do.

He called Ferris in, and explained rapidly to him what had happened. The distance from the window to the ground was some twenty feet.

"I am going to fetch him up," Seymour explained. "I suppose you have got one of our old lassos amongst your baggage? You have? Good! Let me have it at once, and I will drag our friend up in here, and then we can send for that doctor of yours. This unfortunate rascal is a mere tool of Anstruther's, and I want to make use of him."

The lasso was procured at length, and one end twisted round the leg of Ferris's bed. It was not an easy job that Seymour had set for himself, but he managed it at length, and, quite overcome with his exertions, laid the body of Gillmore on the couch. The latter was quite conscious, and apparently not nearly so much damaged as might have been expected. Seymour went over him with the practiced hand of one who has dealt with many accidents by flood and field. He smiled more cheerfully.