While putting on his tie, he told himself that what the dear fellow wanted now was a good, sensible second wife.  And then, as he formulated that thought to himself, the young man—­for he was still quite a young man—­stopped what he was doing, and rubbed his hands joyfully.  Why, of course!  What a fool he had been never to think of it before—­though to be sure it would really have been almost indecent to have thought of it before.  Helen Brabazon?  The very woman for Lionel Varick!  Such a marriage would be the making of his highly-strung, fine-natured friend.

As he hurriedly finished dressing, Panton plumed himself on his cleverness.  With all his heart he hoped the day would come when he would be able to say to Varick:  “Ages before you thought of her, old chap, I selected Miss Brabazon as your future bride!” He hoped, uneasily, that Sir Lyon was not seriously in the running.  But he had noticed that Sir Lyon and Miss Brabazon seemed to have a good deal to say to one another.  Women, so he told himself ruefully, like to be “My lady.”  But she was certainly fond of Varick—­she had been fond of him (of course, only as a woman may be of a friend’s husband) during those sad weeks at Redsands.

* * * * *

As the doctor came out of his room he decided to go in for a moment and see Bubbles Dunster.  Somehow he did not feel quite easy about her.  He wondered, uncomfortably, if there could be anything in Varick’s painful suspicion.  After her aunt and Helen Brabazon between them had put her to bed, and he had come in, alone, to see how she was, she had said abruptly:  “I wonder if it’s true that doctors can keep a secret better than most men?” And when he had made some joking answer, she had asked, in a very serious tone:  “You’re a great friend of Lionel Varick, eh?” He had answered:  “Men don’t vow eternal friendships in the way I’m told young ladies do; but, yes, I hope I am a great friend of Lionel Varick’s.  I’ve a high opinion of him, Miss Bubbles, and I’ve seen him under circumstances that test a man.”

She had looked at him fixedly while he said these words, and then she had opened and shut her eyes in a very odd way.  He now asked himself if it was probable—­possible—­conceivable—­that she blamed Varick for her accident?  He, Varick, evidently thought so.

And then, as he walked along the darkened corridor, there came over Dr. Panton a most extraordinary feeling—­a feeling that he was not alone.

He stayed his steps, and listened intently.  But the only sound he heard was the ticking of a clock.  He walked on, and all at once there came a word repeated twice, quite distinctly, almost as if in his ear.  It was a disagreeable, an offensive word—­a word, or rather an appellation, which the clever young doctor had not heard applied to himself for a good many years.  For, twice over, was the word “Fool!” repeated in a mocking voice, a voice to whose owner he could not at the moment put a name, and yet which seemed vaguely familiar.