giving you a
treat--on that first trip, you know. By the second trip I had acquired a
sneaking suspicion that motoring wasn't such a novelty to you as I had
at first supposed."

They had flown around the remaining curves and were at a rear door of
the house. Anne jumped out, was gone for ten minutes or so, and emerged
with a servant following with a great hamper. This was bestowed at
King's feet, and the car was off again, Anne driving with the ease of a
veteran.

"You see," she explained, "late last evening I had news of the serious
illness of a girl friend of mine. I went to see her, but after I came
back I couldn't be easy about her, and so I got up quite early this
morning and went again. She was much better, precisely as Doctor Burns
had assured me she would be. By and by perhaps I shall learn to trust
him as absolutely as all the rest of you do."

"Burns! You don't mean to say you had him out to see a case last
night--after--"

She nodded, and her profile, under the snug gray hat, was a little like
that of a handsome and somewhat mischievous but strong-willed boy. "Was
that so dreadful of me--as a hostess? I admit that a doctor ought to be
allowed to rest when he is away from home, but I knew that he was just
back from a long voyage and was feeling fit as a fiddle, as he himself
said. And there is really no very competent man in the town where my
friend is ill; it was such a wonderful chance for her to have great
skill at her service. And such skill! Oh, how he went to work for her!
It made one feel at once that something was being done, where before
people had merely tried to do things."

King was making rapid calculation. At the end of it, "Would you mind
telling me whether you have had any sleep at all?" he begged.

She turned her face toward him for an instant. "Do I look so haggard and
wan?" she queried with a quick glance. "Yes, I had a good two hours. And
I'm so happy now to know that Estelle is sleeping quietly that it's much
better than to have slept myself."

"Do you do this sort of thing often?"

"Not just such spectacular night work, but I do try to see that a little
is done to look after a few people who have had a terribly hard time of
it. But this is all--or mostly--since I came back from my year away. I
learned just a few things during that year, you know."

"Your cousin--do you mind?--gave me just a bit of an idea why you went,"
he ventured.

"Oh, Leila Stockton." Her lips took on an