the careless past from the ever-haunted future, he
had been too busy, too much occupied in preparation for the brilliant
career which he felt would one day be his, to allow thoughts of marriage
to distract him from his chosen work. And since that fatal day, although
his old enthusiasm, his old belief in himself and his capabilities, had
long ago receded into the dim background, he had never consciously
thought of any amelioration of the loneliness, the bitter, regretful
solitude in which he now had his being.

Yet the thought of Iris Wayne was oddly, uncomfortably distracting; and
in those weeks of May, during which he deliberately denied himself the
sight of her, Anstice's face grew haggard, his eyes more sunken beneath
their straight black brows.

Yet Fate ordained that he should meet her, more, do her service; and the
meeting, with its subsequent conversation, was one which Iris at least
was destined never to forget.

One grey and cloudy morning when the sun had forgotten to shine, and the
air was warm and moist, Anstice was driving his car along a country road
when he espied her sitting by the wayside with a rather woe-begone face.

Her motor-bicycle was beside her and she was engaged in tying a knot,
with the fingers of her left hand aided by her teeth, in a
roughly-improvised bandage which hid her right wrist.

On seeing his car she looked up; and something in the rather piteous
expression of her grey eyes made him slow down beside her.

"What's wrong, Miss Wayne? Had a spill?"

She answered him ruefully.

"Yes. At least my motor skidded and landed me in the road. And I cut my
wrist on a sharp stone--look!"

She held up a cruelly-jagged flint; and Anstice sprang out of his car
and approached her.

"I say, what a horrid-looking thing! Let me see your wrist, may I? I
think you'd better let me bind it up for you."

"Will you?" She held out her wrist obediently, and taking off the
handkerchief which bound it he saw that it was really badly cut, the
blood still dripping from the wound.

"Ah, quite a nasty gash--it would really do with a stitch or two." He
hesitated, looking at her thoughtfully. "Miss Wayne, what's to be done?
You can't ride home like that, and yet we can hardly leave your
motor-bike on the roadside."

He paused a second, his wits at work. Then his face cleared.

"I know what we'll do," he said. "Round this corner is a cottage where a
patient of mine lives. We'll go in there, dispatch h