are travelling for your health;
don't let inquisitive strangers lead you into talk. Some of them might
be physiologists."

"And might suggest new ideas," Ovid rejoined, determined to make him
speak out this time.

Benjulia nodded, in perfect agreement with his guest's view.

"Are you afraid of new ideas?" Ovid went on.

"Perhaps I am--in _your_ head." He made that admission, without
hesitation or embarrassment. "Good-bye!" he resumed. "My sensitive foot
feels noises: don't bang the door."

Getting out into the lane again, Ovid looked at his letter to the doctor
at Montreal. His first impulse was to destroy it.

As Benjulia had hesitated before giving him the letter, so he now
hesitated before tearing it up.

Contrary to the usual practice in such cases, the envelope was closed.
Under those circumstances, Ovid's pride decided him on using the
introduction. Time was still to pass, before events opened his eyes to
the importance of his decision. To the end of his life he remembered
that Benjulia had been near to keeping back the letter, and that he had
been near to tearing it up.

CHAPTER XX.

The wise ancient who asserted that "Time flies," must have made that
remarkable discovery while he was in a state of preparation for a
journey. When are we most acutely sensible of the shortness of life?
When do we consult our watches in perpetual dread of the result?
When does the night steal on us unawares, and the morning take us by
surprise? When we are going on a journey.

The remaining days of the week went by with a rush. Ovid had hardly time
to ask himself if Friday had really come, before the hours of his life
at home were already numbered.

He had still a little time to spare when he presented himself at
Fairfield Gardens late in the afternoon. Finding no one in the library,
he went up to the drawing-room. His mother was alone, reading.

"Have you anything to say to me, before I tell Carmina that you are
here?" Mrs. Gallilee put that question quietly, so far as her voice was
concerned. But she still kept her eyes on her book. Ovid knew that she
was offering him his first and last chance of speaking plainly, before
he went away. In Carmina's interests he spoke.

"Mother," he said, "I am leaving the one person in the world who is most
precious to me, under your care."

"Do you mean," Mrs. Gallilee asked, "that you and Carmina are engaged to
be married?"

"I mean that; and I am not sure that you appro