The next afternoon but one Templeton Thorpe was on the operating table.

In a private sitting-room on the third floor of the great hospital, three people sat waiting for the result--two women and a man.

They were the Tresslyns, mother, son and daughter.

There were unopened boxes of flowers on the table in the middle of the room.

The senders of these flowers were men, and their cards were inside the covers, damp with the waters of preservation.