nd every hollow
and hillock should be gay with the star convolvulus and the flaunting
scarlet poppies--then Death should come, borne on winged feet, and bearing
the sword of keenness, to sever the iron bonds of Andromeda chained to the
rock. And here was Summer, knocking at the door!

Lynette did not reappear. He did not seek her out and ask the reason of
her strange display of emotion. Only a husband could do that who had the
right to take her in his arms and kiss the last remaining traces of her
tears away. Saxham went to his consulting-room, and while all the clocks
of London made time, and the moon veered southward, and the stars rose and
set, he toiled over his notes and case-books in the brilliant circle cast
by the shaded electric lamp upon his writing-table, and the tide in the
big whisky-flask in the table-drawer ebbed low.

Hours hence he laid down his pen. The flask had long been emptied; the
alcohol-flare was dying out in the grey chambers of his brain. Weariness
of life weighed on him like a leaden panoply. He had almost stretched his
hand to take the little blue-glass vial that sat waiting, waiting in the
deep table-drawer aside the drained flask before sleep overcame him. His
head sank against the chair-back. His was a sudden, heavy lapsing into
forgetfulness, unmarred by dreams.

Time sped. The silver table-clock, the clock upon the mantelshelf, and the
grandfather clock in the corner, ran a race with the chronometer in the
pocket of the sleeping man. The brilliant unwavering circle of electric
light did not reach the face of the Dop Doctor. It bathed his hands, that
hung lax over the arms of the Sheraton chair, and tipped his lifted chin,
leaving the strong brow and closed eyes in shadow. But as the pale glimmer
of dawn began to outline the edges of the blinds and stretched at length a
broad, pointing finger across the quiet room, the sleeping face showed
greyish pale and luminous as a drawing by Whistler in silver-point.

The dawn had not rested on it long before there came a knock upon the
panel of the consulting-room door. It was so faint and diffident a knock,
no wonder it passed unheeded. Then the door opened timidly, and a slender
figure in pale flowing draperies of creamy embroidered cashmere stole upon
small, noiseless, slippered feet over the thick Turkey carpet.

It was Lynette. She had risen from her bed, and looked out from the
landing into the hall below, and, seeing the ligh