ficiently finely strung
to fully estimate the evil effect of Rooney-Molyneux's behaviour at
this juncture; but not so the fine old woman of the ranks, with her
quick perceptions and high and sensitive sentiment regarding the
bed-rock relations of life. Calling the doctor out during an interval
she discussed the matter within my hearing.

"Poor little thing, she's just heart-broke with the way her husband's
carryin' on. I wish I could deliver him up to Mrs Bray to scald; he's
one of 'em deserves it, pure an' simple! If Jim Clay had forsook me
an' demeaned me like this I would have died, but he was always
tenderer than a mother. Somethink will have to be done. I'll send
Andrew to Jimmeny's with the sulky to get him; he can get Danby to
help him if he can't manage him hisself, and take the old varmint down
to my place and keep him there secure. Tell Jake there it's got to be
done, an' I'll make up a yarn to pacify the poor thing;" and
returning to her patient, to the old dame's credit, truthful though
she was, I heard her say--

"Your husband's been fidgeting me, an' I never can stand any one but
the doctor about at these times, so I bundled him off down to stay
with Jake, and gave him strict instructions not to poke his nose back
here till he's sent for."

What diplomat could have made it more kindly tactful than that?

"Quite right too," said the doctor, upholding her. "When I see it's
going to be a good case like this, I always banish the man too."

"But I could have seen him, and the poor fellow I'm sure is
overwhelmed with anxiety," said the hapless little martyr in the brave
make-believe that is a compulsory science with most women.

"Well, _we_ ain't so anxious about him as we are about you," said the
valiant old woman. "You're the chief person now. He ain't no
consideration at all, an' can go an' bag his head for all we care,
while we get you out of this fix."

I sat upon the verandah until Andrew passed, taking home with him the
noble Rooney-Molyneux, lordly scion of an ancient and doubtless effete
house, and then the doctor banished Dawn from the house, giving her
into my charge, with instructions to take her home and calm her down.

Had she been the heroine of a romance she would have been a born
nurse. Without any training or experience she could have surpassed
Florence Nightingale, but, alas! she was merely an everyday girl in
real life, and this being her first actual experience of the tragedy
of bi