ain
to Hollymead. There was no other until five, and that a slow one. So I
taxied off to a man I know in town who owns several cars, borrowed his
fastest, and raced down here, forty miles an hour. Even then I got here
too late. However, no harm has been done. But you will understand that
prompt action was necessary. What on earth was your cousin's little
game?"

"It is quite inexplicable to me," said Helen, slowly, "that you should
have any knowledge of my cousin's letter. Also, you have obviously been
prompt, but I have not the faintest idea why prompt action was
necessary."

"Didn't your cousin give you my message?"

"Your name was not mentioned in his letter."

"Did he tell you of Ronnie's critical condition?"

"He said Ronnie told him he had never felt fitter in his life, and added
that he looked it."

Dick leapt to his feet, walked over to the window, and muffled a few
remarks about Aubrey Treherne, in the curtains. Nevertheless Helen heard
them.

"Is--Ronnie--ill?" she asked, with trembling lips.

Dick came back.

"Ronnie is desperately ill, Mrs. West. But, now he is safely at home,
within easy reach of the best advice, we will soon have him all right
again. Don't you worry."

But "worry" scarcely expressed Helen's face of agonised dismay.

"Tell me--all," she said.

Dick sat down and told her quite clearly and simply the text of his
message to her through Aubrey, explaining and amplifying it with full
medical details.

"Any violent emotion, either of joy, grief or anger, would probably
have disastrous results. He apparently came to blows with your cousin
during the evening he spent at Leipzig. Ronnie gave him a lovely thing
in the way of lips. One recalls it now with exceeding satisfaction. When
I saw your cousin afterwards he appeared to have condoned it. But it may
account for his subsequent behaviour. Fortunately this sort of
thing--" Dick glanced about him appreciatively--"looks peaceful enough."

Helen sat in stricken silence.

"It augurs well that he was able to stand the pleasure of his
home-coming," continued Dr. Dick. "He must be extraordinarily better, if
you noticed nothing unusual. Possibly he slept during the
night-crossing. Also, I gave him some stuff to take on the way back,
intended to clear his brain and calm him generally. Did he seem to you
quite normal?"

Then Helen rose and stood before him with clasped hands.

"He seemed to me quite normal," she said, "because I had n