a pitying smile.

"You don't know Jane," he said. "Trespassers in the kitchen are
not--welcomed."

"And Jane doesn't know _me_," replied Sara firmly.

"On your own head be it, then," retorted the doctor, and led the way to
the sacrosanct domain presided over by Jane Crab.

How Sara managed it Selwyn never knew, but she contrived to invade
Jane's kitchen and perform the office of tea-making without offending
her in the very least. Nay, more, by some occult process known only to
herself, she succeeded in winning Jane's capacious heart, and from
that moment onwards, the autocrat of the kitchen became her devoted
satellite; and later, when Sara started to make drastic changes in the
slip-shod arrangements of the house, her most willing ally.

"Miss Tennant's the only body in the place as has got some sense in her
head," she was heard to observe on more than one occasion.

CHAPTER VI

THE SKELETON IN SELWYN'S CUPBOARD

After tea, Selwyn escorted Sara upstairs and introduced her to his wife.
Mrs. Selwyn was a slender, colourless woman, possessing the remnants of
what must at one time have been an ineffective kind of prettiness. She
was a determinedly chronic invalid, and rarely left the rooms which
had been set aside for her use to join the other members of the family
downstairs.

"The stairs try my heart, you see," she told Sara, with the martyred air
peculiar to the hypochondriac--the genuine sufferer rarely has it.
"It is, of course, a great deprivation to me, and I don't think either
Dick"--with an inimical glance at her husband--"or Molly come up to see
me as often as they might. Stairs are no difficulty to _them_."

Selwyn, who invariably ran up to see his wife immediately on his return
from no matter how long or how tiring a round of professional visits,
bit his lip.

"I come as often as I can, Minnie," he said patiently. "You must
remember my time is not my own."

"No, dear, of course not. And I expect that outside patients are much
more interesting to visit than one's own wife," with a disagreeable
little laugh.

"They mean bread-and-butter, anyway," said Selwyn bluntly.

"Of course they do." She turned to Sara. "Dick always thinks in terms of
bread-and-butter, Miss Tennant," she said sneeringly. "But money means
little enough to any one with my poor health. Beyond procuring me a few
alleviations, there is nothing it can do for me."

Sara was privately of the opinion that it had done a good dea