"What is this Doctor Carfew's address?"

He gave it to her.

She pondered a moment.

"Very well," she then said. "I shall dress and go to see him. Would you
like me to get a nurse to assist you?"

"If I might venture, madam," said the man discreetly, "it would be
better perhaps to hear first what Doctor Carfew says. He may wish a
nurse of his own."

"Yes. That is true. Tell Parkson to call me a cab in half an hour."

She put on a dark-blue linen frock and a little toque of black straw.

"Give me my long grey veil, Tilda," she said. As the girl was winding it
about her hat, she asked:

"Haven't you a friend who's a Catholic, Tilda?"

"Yes, m'm--Maria Tonks. A very good girl, though a Papist, m'm."

"And what did you say was the name of the priest who converted her?"

"Father Raphael of the Poor, m'm. But he didn't convert her exactly,
m'm, if I may say so. She just took such a fancy to 'im, his bein' so
kind to her w'en in distress, m'm--as she went and became a Catholic."

"I see. He is very good to the poor, isn't he?"

"So they say, m'm. He gets his name from that. Anybody 'as only to be
unfortunate to find welcome with him--so Maria says."

"Yes.... Yes...." said Sophy absently. Then added: "Where does he live?"

Tilda mentioned the address.

Sophy thanked her mechanically and went out.

XIII

Dr. Carfew lived in Hanover Square. It seemed a cruelly short way there
to Sophy, for the motion of the cab, the rolling forward into the fine,
calm rain soothed her. The cabby wanted to lower the glass, but she
would not have it. The rain was only a thick drizzle. She put up her
veil, and let the beaded moisture beat in upon her face. How lovely were
the London plane trees against the varied grey ... and how she hated
them, and all that was England--England from whence had come her
unspeakable humiliation and misery!

But the next moment, with the soft homeliness of the air upon her cheek,
came the realisation that she could not hate the land over which it
breathed. It was in her blood as a Virginian to love England. It was
only disfigured for her as a friend may be disfigured by a cruel
accident, yet remain dear as ever. But though she loved England--she was
homesick--homesick. She yearned for the foothills of the Blue Ridge as
Pilgrim yearned for the Delectable Mountains. During the short drive to
Hanover Square, she was conscious only of this gnawing nostalgia and the
undercurrent of determin