ifled as
I was by the disinfectants in hospital wards and the variety of
perfumes and pastilles in the rooms of wealthy patients. Truly the
life of a London doctor is the most monotonous and laborious of any of
the learned professions, and little wonder is it that when the jaded
medico finds himself in the country or by the sea he seldom fails to
take his fill of fresh air.

At first a difficulty presented itself in letting myself out unheard;
but I recollected that in the new wing of the house, in which I had
been placed, there were no other bedrooms, therefore with a little
care I might descend undetected. So taking my hat and stick I opened
the door, stole noiselessly down the stairs, and in a few minutes had
made an adventurous exit by a window--fearing the grating bolts of the
door--and was soon strolling across the grounds by the private path,
which I knew led through the churchyard and afterwards down to the
river-bank.

With Ethelwynn I had walked across the meadows by that path on several
occasions, and in the dead silence of the brilliant night vivid
recollections of a warm summer's evening long past came back to
me--sweet remembrances of days when we were childishly happy in each
other's love.

Nothing broke the quiet save the shrill cry of some night bird down by
the river, and the low roar of the distant weir. The sky was
cloudless, and the moon so bright that I could have read a newspaper.
I strolled on slowly, breathing the refreshing air, and thinking
deeply over the complications of the situation. In the final hour I
had spent in the drawing-room I had certainly detected in the young
widow a slight eccentricity of manner, not at all accentuated, but yet
sufficient to show me that she had been strenuously concealing her
grief during my presence there.

Having swung myself over the stile I passed round the village
churchyard, where the moss-grown gravestones stood grim and ghostly in
the white light, and out across the meadows down to where the waters
of the Nene, rippling on, were touched with silver. The river-path was
wide, running by the winding bank away to the fen-lands and beyond. As
I gained the river's edge and walked beneath the willows I heard now
and then a sharp, swift rustling in the sedges as some water-rat or
otter, disturbed by my presence, slipped away into hiding. The rural
peace of that brilliant night attracted me, and finding a hurdle I
seated myself upon it, and taking out my