ight, her back to the doctor, whose watchful eyes
never left her for an instant.

Suddenly she looked across to Lord Ingleby's chair.

"And I believe _Peter_ knew," she said, in a loud, high-pitched voice.
"Good heavens! Peter knew; and refused his food because Michael was dead.
And _I_ said he had dyspepsia! Michael, oh Michael! Your wife didn't know
you were dead; but your dog knew! Oh Michael, Michael! Little Peter
knew!"

She lifted her arms toward the picture of the big man and the tiny dog.

Then she swayed backward.

The doctor caught her, as she fell.

CHAPTER IV

IN SAFE HANDS

All through the night Lady Ingleby lay gazing before her, with bright
unseeing eyes.

The quiet woman from the Lodge, who had been, before her own marriage, a
devoted maid-companion to Lady Ingleby, arrived in speechless sorrow, and
helped the doctor tenderly with all there was to do.

But when consciousness returned, and realisation, they were accompanied
by no natural expressions of grief; simply a settled stony silence; the
white set face; the bright unseeing eyes.

Margaret O'Mara knelt, and wept, and prayed, kissing the folded hands
upon the silken quilt. But Lady Ingleby merely smiled vaguely; and once
she said: "Hush, my dear Maggie. At last we will be adequate."

Several times during the night the doctor came, sitting silently beside
the bed, with watchful eyes and quiet touch. Myra scarcely noticed him,
and again he wondered how much larger the big grey eyes would grow, in
the pale setting of that lovely face.

Once he signed to the other watcher to follow him into the corridor.
Closing the door, he turned and faced her. He liked this quiet woman, in
her simple black merino gown, linen collar and cuffs, and neatly braided
hair. There was an air of refinement and gentle self-control about her,
which pleased the doctor.

"Mrs. O'Mara," he said; "she must weep, and she must sleep."

"She does not weep easily, sir," replied Margaret O'Mara, "and I have
known her to lie widely awake throughout an entire night with less cause
for sorrow than this."

"Ah," said the doctor; and he looked keenly at the woman from the Lodge.
"I wonder what else you have known?" he thought. But he did not voice the
conjecture. Deryck Brand rarely asked questions of a third person. His
patients never had to find out that his knowledge of them came through
the gossip or the breach of confidence of others.

At last he could allow