ing his voice and nodding at her with intention, "a most
remarkable case. Very remarkable indeed. And now, if I can find a
porter, we might as well be moving."

He seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaving them; then he set
off down the platform. He walked with long strides in great spasms of
energy, as he did everything. Mary turned from looking after him to
the little creature beside her with a sense of absurd contrast. As
she did so she saw that he too was looking after the Professor, and
his empty face had suddenly become intent; it was hardened and
vicious, with the parted lips and narrow eyes of hate. The man had
discovered some spring of life within his listless body. It lasted
only while one might draw a full breath; then he saw her scrutiny,
and sank again to his still dreariness. It was a startling thing to
see that flabby little insignificance strengthen to such a force of
feeling, and Mary was conscious of a sort of alarm. But before she
could frame a thing to say the Professor was back again, and the
atmosphere of his vigour had enveloped them.

Professor Fish sat next to her in the cab, and the new patient, who
was to be an inmate of her house for some time to come, leaned
against the cushions opposite, with eyes half closed and his coarse
hands folded in his lap. The Professor talked without ceasing, gazing
through the open window at the fat lands of Kent unfolded beside the
road and torpid under the July sun; but Mary found more of interest
in the still face before her, cryptic and mysterious in its utter
vacancy. So little it expressed besides weakness that Mary wondered
what illness could thus have cut the man off from the world. She was
used to the waste products of life; one "resident patient" succeeded
another at her father's house, and to each she was a deft nurse and a
supple companion. They had in common, she found, a certain
paltriness; most of them had been overtaxed by easy burdens; but this
man's aspect conveyed suggestions of a long struggle with a burden
beyond all strength. The meanness of him, all his appearance of
having begun in the gutter and failed there, touched her not at all;
Mary had had too much to do with human flesh in the raw to be greatly
concerned about such matters as that.

Dr. Pond was at home to meet them when the cab drew up at the door,
an elderly, good-natured man, white-haired and sprucely white-
bearded. He greeted Professor Fish with some deference, and hel