“And then?” prompted Garrick.

“I had stopped with my heart in my mouth at the narrowness of my own escape from the rushing black death.  Pursuit was impossible.  My car was capable of no such burst of speed as his.  And then, too, there was a groaning man down in the ravine below.  I got out, clambered over the fence, and down in the shrubbery into the pitch darkness.

“Fortunately, the man had been catapulted out before his car turned over.  I found him, and with all the strength I could muster and as gently as I was able carried him up to the road.  When I held him under the light of my lamps, I saw at once that there was not a moment to lose.  I fixed him in the rear of my car as comfortably as I could and then began a race to get him home here where I have almost a private hospital of my own, as quickly as possible.”

Cards in his pocket had identified Warrington and Dr. Mead remembered having heard the name.  The prompt attention of the doctor had undoubtedly saved the young man’s life.

Over and over again, Dr. Mead said, in his delirium Warrington had repeated the name, “Violet—­Violet!” It was as Garrick had surmised, his desire to stand well in her eyes that had prompted the midnight journey.  Yet who the assailant might be, neither Dr. Mead nor the broken raving of Warrington seemed to afford even the slightest clew.  That he was a desperate character, without doubt in desperate straits over something, required no great acumen to deduce.

Toward morning in a fleeting moment of lucidity, Warrington had mentioned Garrick’s name in such a way that Dr. Mead had looked it up in the telephone directory and then at the earliest moment had called up.

“Exactly the right thing,” reassured Garrick.  “Can’t you think of anything else that would identify the driver of that other car?”

“Only that he was a wonderful driver, that fellow,” pursued the doctor, admiration getting the better of his horror now that the thing was over.  “I couldn’t describe the car, except that it was a big one and seemed to be of a foreign make.  He was crowding Warrington as much as he dared with safety to himself—­and not a light on his own car, too, remember.”

Garrick’s face was puckered in thought.

“And the most remarkable thing of all about it,” added the doctor, rising and going over to a white enameled cabinet in the corner of his office, “was that wound from the pistol.”

The doctor paused to emphasize the point he was about to make.  “Apparently it put Warrington out,” he resumed.  “And yet, after all, I find that it is only a very superficial flesh wound of the shoulder.  Warrington’s condition is really due to the contusions he received owing to his being thrown from the car.  His car wasn’t going very fast at the time, for it had slowed down for me.  In one way that was fortunate—­although one might say it was the cause of everything, since his slowing down gave the car behind a chance to creep up on him the few feet necessary.