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Rh able. Only the chance presence of passers-by, who had heard Alan's shouts and responded to them, had prevented the execution of his purpose, and had driven the man to swift flight for his own safety.

Alan had believed, in his struggle with Spearman in Corvet's library, that Spearman might have killed rather than have been discovered there. Were there others to whom Alan's presence had become a threat so serious that they would proceed even to the length of calculated murder? He could not know that. The only safe plan was to assume that persons, in number unknown, had definite, vital interest in his "removal" by violence or otherwise, and that, among them, he must reckon Henry Spearman; and he must fight them alone. For Sherrill's liking for him, even Constance Sherrill's interest and sympathy were nullified in practical intent by their admiration for and their complete confidence in Spearman. It did not matter that Alan might believe that, in fighting Spearman, he was fighting not only for himself but for her; he knew now certainly that he must count her as Spearman's; her! Things swam before him again dizzily as he thought of her; and he sank back and closed his eyes.

A little before six Constance Sherrill and Spearman called to inquire after him and were admitted for a few moments to his room. She came to him, bent over him, while she spoke the few words of sympathy the nurse allowed to her; she stood back then while Spearman spoke to him. In the succeeding days, he saw her nearly every day, accompanied always by her father or Spearman; it was the full two weeks the nurse had allotted for his remaining in the hospital before he saw her alone.