house and closed the door upon her.

CHAPTER VI

A GAME OF CARDS

Should Miss Gossaway have been sitting at her lookout some weeks after
Martha's interview with Captain Nat Holt, and should she have watched
the movements of Doctor John's gig as it rounded into the open gate of
Cobden Manor, she must have decided that something out of the common
was either happening or about to happen inside Yardley's hospitable
doors. Not only was the sorrel trotting at her best, the doctor
flapping the lines along her brown back, his body swaying from side to
side with the motion of the light vehicle, but as he passed her house
he was also consulting the contents of a small envelope which he had
taken from his pocket.

"Please come early," it read. "I have something important to talk over
with you."

A note of this character signed with so adorable a name as "Jane
Cobden" was so rare in the doctor's experience that he had at once
given up his round of morning visits and, springing into his waiting
gig, had started to answer it in person.

He was alive with expectancy. What could she want with him except to
talk over some subject that they had left unfinished? As he hurried on
there came into his mind half a dozen matters, any one of which it
would have been a delight to revive. He knew from the way she worded
the note that nothing had occurred since he had seen her--within the
week, in fact--to cause her either annoyance or suffering. No; it was
only to continue one of their confidential talks, which were the joy of
his life.

Jane was waiting for him in the morning-room. Her face lighted up as he
entered and took her hand, and immediately relaxed again into an
expression of anxiety.

All his eagerness vanished. He saw with a sinking of the heart, even
before she had time to speak, that something outside of his own
affairs, or hers, had caused her to write the note.

"I came at once," he said, keeping her hand in his. "You look troubled;
what has happened?"

"Nothing yet," she answered, leading him to the sofa, "It is about
Lucy. She wants to go away for the winter."

"Where to?" he asked. He had placed a cushion at her back and had
settled himself beside her.

"To Trenton, to visit her friend Miss Collins and study music. She says
Warehold bores her."

"And you don't want her to go?"

"No; I don't fancy Miss Collins, and I am afraid she has too strong an
influence over Lucy. Her personality grates on me; s