hich betrayed
unmistakable irritation at finding himself admitted no further than the
door.

"'Your mistress is not well enough to see visitors? Give her that card,'
said the doctor, 'and say I expect her, the next time I call, to be well
enough to see _me_.'

"If his voice had not told me plainly that he felt in no friendly mood
toward Mrs. Oldershaw, I dare say I should have let him go without
claiming his acquaintance; but, as things were, I felt an impulse to
speak to him or to anybody who had a grudge against Mother Jezebel.
There was more of my small spitefulness in this, I suppose. Anyway, I
slipped downstairs; and, following the doctor out quietly, overtook him
in the street.

"I had recognized his voice, and I recognized his back as I walked
behind him. But when I called him by his name, and when he turned round
with a start and confronted me, I followed his example, and started on
my side. The doctor's face was transformed into the face of a perfect
stranger! His baldness had hidden itself under an artfully grizzled wig.
He had allowed his whiskers to grow, and had dyed them to match his new
head of hair. Hideous circular spectacles bestrode his nose in place of
the neat double eyeglass that he used to carry in his hand; and a
black neckerchief, surmounted by immense shirt-collars, appeared as the
unworthy successor of the clerical white cravat of former times. Nothing
remained of the man I once knew but the comfortable plumpness of his
figure, and the confidential courtesy and smoothness of his manner and
his voice.

"'Charmed to see you again,' said the doctor, looking about him a little
anxiously, and producing his card-case in a very precipitate manner.
'But, my dear Miss Gwilt, permit me to rectify a slight mistake on
your part. Doctor Downward of Pimlico is dead and buried; and you will
infinitely oblige me if you will never, on any consideration, mention
him again!'

"I took the card he offered me, and discovered that I was now supposed
to be speaking to 'Doctor Le Doux, of the Sanitarium, Fairweather Vale,
Hampstead!'

"'You seem to have found it necessary,' I said, 'to change a great many
things since I last saw you? Your name, your residence, your personal
appearance--?'

"'And my branch of practice,' interposed the doctor. 'I have purchased
of the original possessor (a person of feeble enterprise and no
resources) a name, a diploma, and a partially completed sanitarium for
the reception o