d!'

Mrs. Ormonde was standing at the foot of the bed. She drew nearer, and,
as the sick girl regarded her, asked:

'Do you know me, Thyrza?'

Thyrza fell back, fear-stricken. She spoke a few disconnected words,
then her eyes half-closed again, and the lethargy returned upon her.

In a few minutes Mrs. Ormonde left the room and sought her acquaintance
in the cooking department. Mrs. Gandle gave her the exact address of
the medical man, and she found the house without difficulty.

She had to wait for a quarter of an hour in a bare, dusty,
drug-smelling ante-chamber, where also sat a woman who coughed without
ceasing, and a boy who had a formidable bandage athwart his face. The
practitioner, when he presented himself, failed to inspire her with
confidence. He expressed himself so ambiguously about Thyrza's
condition and gave on the whole such scanty proof of intelligence that
Mrs. Ormonde felt it unsafe to leave him in charge of a case such as
this. She easily obtained his permission to summon a doctor with whom
she was acquainted.

She drove to the latter's abode, and was fortunate enough to find him
at luncheon. She was on terms of intimacy with the family, and accepted
very willingly an invitation to join them at their meal. But the doctor
could not get to Caledonian Road before the evening. Having made an
appointment with him for seven o'clock, she next drove to the east side
of Regent's Park, where, in a street of small houses, she knocked at a
door and made inquiries for 'Mrs. Emerson.' This lady was at home, the
servant said. Mrs. Ormonde went up the first floor and entered a
sitting-room.

Its one occupant was a young woman, probably of six-and-twenty, who sat
in out-of-doors attire. Her look suggested that she had come home too
weary even to take her bonnet off before resting. She had the air of an
educated person; her dress, which was plain and decent in the same
rather depressing way as the appointment of her room, put it beyond
doubt that she spent her days in some one of the manifold kinds of
teaching; a roll upon her lap plainly consisted of music. She could not
lay claim to good looks, save in the sense that her features were
impressed with agreeable womanliness; the smile which followed speedily
upon her expression of surprise when Mrs. Ormonde appeared, was
natural, homely, and sweet. She threw the roll away, and sprang up with
a joyous exclamation:

'To think that you should come just on this d