"To Miss Nan Primrose, a young lady I haven't the honour of knowing, and he had the lying audacity to say that he came at her suggestion."
Stuart tried to speak and his tongue refused to move.
"I was frank enough to inform him that he was a liar. For which, of course, I had to apologize. Well, you've helped me to-night, boy, more than I can tell you. It helps an old man to look into the eyes of youth and renew his faith. Good-night!"
The doctor began to lower the lights, and Stuart said mechanically:
"Good-night!"
In a stupor of blind despair he slowly fumbled his way up to his room, entered, and threw himself across the bed without undressing. It was one thing to preach, another to face the thing itself alone in the darkness.
Through the shadows of the long night he lay with wide staring eyes, gazing at the vision which would not vanish—the face of the woman he loved—cold, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, dead.
CHAPTER VIII
STRUGGLE