s have had this happen, and just too when I
wanted it all as a surprise for you. That's why he hurried out."

"Ah, dear me!" said the great physician, raising his glasses to his eye.
"Such lovely specimens, too. Poor fellow! He must have slipped. A
sad accident due to his blindness, of course, while watering, I
presume."

For there, on the red-tiled floor of the conservatory, lay an overturned
watering-can, whose contents had formed a muddy puddle, in which were
about a dozen broken pots just as they had been knocked down from the
stand, the bulbs snapped, beautiful trusses of blossom shivered and
crushed, and the whole display ruined by the gap made in its midst.

The tears of vexation stood in Mrs Mostyn's eyes, but she turned very
calm directly as she walked back into the drawing-room and rang, looking
white now with anger and annoyance.

"Send John Grange to the conservatory directly," she said to the butler,
and then walked back with her guest.

Five minutes later John Grange came in from the garden, and the great
physician watched him keenly, as the young man's eye looked full of
trouble and his face twitched a little as he went towards where he
believed his mistress to be.

"What is the meaning of this horrible destruction, Grange?" she cried.

"I don't know, ma'am," he replied excitedly. "I came in and found the
pots all down only a few moments ago."

"That will do," she said sternly, and she turned away with her guest.
"Even he cannot speak the truth, doctor. Oh, what cowards some men can
be!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Mrs Mostyn said but little more, though she thought a great deal. John
Grange gave her his explanation. He had, he said, been into the
conservatory twice that morning; and on the second visit brought the can
of water to give the orchids a final freshening, when he felt something
crush beneath his feet, and, startled and horrified at finding what was
wrong, he had dropped the pot of water and added to the mishap.

Mrs Mostyn said, "That will do," rather coldly; and the young man went
away crushed, feeling that she did not believe him, and that the
morning's business had, in her disappointment, cast him down from his
high position.

A day or two later he tried to renew the matter, but he received a short
"That will do"; and, humbled and disheartened, he went away, feeling
that his position at The Hollows would never be the same again.

It was talked over at the cottage, where M