Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/307



HIS is the place, sir,” said the cabman.

Carper stepped out. The house before him was lighted. The door was standing open. The brougham of a surgeon was beside the curb. He walked slowly up the great steps to the door. There was an indescribable something in the air which seemed to presage calamity; there were sounds as of persons hurrying with some desperate matter.

As Carper put up his hand to touch the bell, two men came out into the shadow of the hall.

“It is a bad case of acute mania,” one was saying. “I have given him two hypodermics of morphine, and he is still raving like a drunken sailor.”

Carper's hand dropped to his side. He turned slowly and passed down the steps into the street. He had not been noticed by the 283