Yes, as Mrs. Budd had told Miss Baynard, there was a decided change for the better in Mr. Cortelyon\'s condition, but by what means the change in question had been brought about was known to three people only--the sick man, his nurse, and the latter\'s son.

Cornelius Dinkel had gone to Stanbrook in obedience to his mother\'s midnight summons, taking with him a small quantity of his remedy, and had spent an hour with the Squire, unknown to any of the household.

He was a tall, sallow, dried-up man, who looked as if all the juices of his body had been sucked out of him by the heat of a tropical climate. He was thirty years old, but might well have been taken for a man of forty-five. Nobody would have ventured to call him handsome, but his expression was one of marked intelligence, in combination with considerable will-power and great tenacity of purpose.

"Mr. Cortelyon, my son," said Mrs. Dinkel, as she introduced the young doctor into the sick room.

Dinkel bowed gravely. The Squire blinked his eyes; he would have nodded, but had not strength to do so.

Then he said, speaking in a thin whisper, broken by frequent gaspings for breath: "Your mother informs me that you have brought some wonderful discovery back home with you, and she would fain cozen me into the belief that by means of it you can succeed in prolonging the life of a moribund like me. I tell you at once that I don\'t believe in your ability to do anything of the kind. No, damme! I\'m too far gone for any hanky-panky of that sort, and both Banks and Mills would simply dub you a quack for your pains."

Dinkel\'s face remained impassive. "Permit me, Mr. Cortelyon," he said, and with that he proceeded to submit the other to a brief but searching examination. Till it had come to an end no one spoke. Then taking up a position on the hearth with his back to the fire, and speaking in the tone of one who felt himself master of the situation, he broke the silence:

"Your case, Mr. Cortelyon, I find to be exactly such as my mother described it to me. That I can permanently cure you I at once admit to be an impossibility. You are too advanced in life, and your constitution is too nearly worn out, to warrant any such hope. But that I can succeed in prolonging your life for weeks, nay, it may well be for several months to come, I make no manner of doubt--such is the marvellous efficacy of the remedy I have brought back with me from abroad."

This, to a man who had every reason for believing that a few more hours would bring the end, was news indeed. Weeks--perhaps months--of life, when he had looked forward to being buried about a week hence! It was too marvellous to credit.

For a little while he was too overcome to speak. Then he murmured, and Dinkel had to bend over him in order to catch what he said: "I--I cannot believe it--I cannot!"

"Nevertheless, Mr. Cortelyon, I am not dealing in romance--heaven forbid that I should in such a case!--but in sober fact. There is a homely proverb which affirms that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have brought with me a small quantity of my remedy. Will you permit me to administer a dose of it to you?"

Again there was a space of silence. The sick man\'s gaze was bent on the young doctor as if he would fain read him through and through, while his grizzled eyebrows made a straight line across his forehead, he liked the look of him; there was something in that strong, earnest, plain face which inspired confidence. Compared with him, Dr. Banks looked like an amiable old woman.

"First of all, I should like to know what this so-called wonder-worker of yours is compounded of," he murmured, after a time.

Dinkel shrugged his shoulders. "Its chief constituent is the dried and powdered bark of the tatao tree--a tree indigenous to the island of Java. The other ingredients consist of sundry drugs in certain fixed proportions, the secret of which I am not at present prepared to divulge."

"Quite right--quite right. Very sensible on your part. You don\'t want to poison me, I suppose--hey?"

The ghost of a smile flitted across Dinkel\'s rugged face. "What should I gain by that, sir? Only the hangman\'s noose. I think you ought to credit me with a desire for lengthening your days, not for shortening them."

"It would puzzle you to make \'em much shorter than they seem likely to be," gasped the Squire, with a painful imitation of one of his old chuckles. "Well, well," he resumed, "I\'ll venture on a dose of this stuff of yours, not because I\'ve any faith in it, mind you, but merely to take the cock-a-doodle out of you, and prove to you that you\'re not the wonderfully clever fellow you\'re inclined to crack yourself up as being."

Not for days had the Squire spoken so much in so short a time, and as the last words died from off his lips his eyes closed and he sank into a half swoon.

He could not have been in more competent hands, and before long he was brought back to consciousness. His first words, in a feeble whisper, were: "Give me the stuff; I\'ll take it."

From his waistcoat pocket Dinkel extracted a tiny phial, no bigger than his little finger, about three-parts full of a ruby-colored fluid, which he proceeded to empty into a dessert spoon.

"You won\'t find it at all disagreeable," he said, as he proffered the spoon and its contents to the Squire.

"It tastes not unlike the liquorice-root I used to be fond of when a lad," murmured the latter half a minute later, and with that his eyes closed again.

Dinkel held up his hand, and for a little space neither he nor his mother stirred. Then said the young doctor, "He is asleep, and if all goes well, as I have every reason to think it will, he won\'t awake for five or six hours. I will go now, and return between six and seven o\'clock."

As already stated, Dr. Banks, when he called as usual in the course of next forenoon, was considerably surprised at finding such a decided improvement in his patient\'s condition, when, according to all the rules and regulations of medical science, he ought to have been nearly, if not quite, in a state of collapse. "It\'s merely a flash in the pan--the sudden flare-up of a candle before it drops into darkness," he said to himself. "He\'s a wonderful old fellow, and I\'ve evidently underrated the strength of his constitution."

But next day, and the day after that, a still further improvement unmistakably manifested itself. Dr. Banks rubbed his nose with his forefinger and was clearly nonplussed. On th............