A messenger had just arrived with the tidings that Dr.Madden, driving back from Kingston Seymour, had been thrown from his vehicle and lay insensible at a roadside cottage.
* * * For some time the doctor had been intending to buy a new horse; his faithful old roadster was very weak in the knees.

As in other matters, so in this, postponement became fatality; the horse stumbled and fell, and its driver was flung head forward into the road.

Some hours later they brought him to his home, and for a day or two there were hopes that he might rally.

But the sufferer's respite only permitted him to dictate and sign a brief will; this duty performed, Dr.Madden closed his lips for ever..