"Try and discover, if you can, the reason of the doctor's power over my father, and why he is for ever directing his actions," urged the girl. "For myself I care little; it is for Sir Hugh's sake that I am trying to break the bonds, if possible."
"You have no suspicion of the reason?" he repeated, looking seriously into her face. "You do not think that he holds some secret of your stepfather's? Undue influence can frequently be traced to such a source."
She shook her head in the negative, a blank look in her great, dark eyes.
"No," she replied, "it is all a mystery—one which I beg of you, Walter, to solve, and"—she faltered in a strange voice—"and to save me!"
He pressed her hand and gave her his promise. Then for a second she raised her full red lips to his, and together they passed back into the drawing-room, where their re-entry in company did not escape the sharp eyes of the lonely doctor of Pimlico.
CHAPTER VI
BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND
Walter Fetherston strolled back that night to the dingy chambers he rented in Holles Street, off Oxford Street, as a pied-à-terre when in London. He was full of apprehension, full of curiosity, as to who this Doctor Weirmarsh could be.