sentment. "Why do people want to take you by surprise?"

"At any rate," remarked Miss Clifford pleasantly, "it can't possibly
make any difference. To me it seemed like an answer to prayer! It's
just as though something had warned him his father was ill."

"How could anything possibly warn him of such a thing?" demanded the
other with a touch of irritation. "A thing no one could have foreseen!"

"I don't know how, but I certainly felt a premonition of it, as I was
telling the nurse a moment ago. If I had been away I am sure I should
have come home at once, feeling as I did."

Lady Clifford carefully fitted another cigarette into her holder and
lit it.

"I think the doctor is right, that we are all making far too much fuss
over Charles's illness," she said abruptly. "After all, there has been
nothing so far to cause us any alarm."

"Yes, you are quite right," agreed Miss Clifford simply. "And I am
glad to hear you say so, my dear. You know you have really been more
nervous than I have."

"Ah, that is the way I take things. I cannot help my nature!" sighed
the Frenchwoman amicably enough. "I always fear the worst. I suppose
now we had better ask the doctor if we can tell Charles about Roger's
coming?"

"Is the doctor with him?"

"I will see."

She crossed to the door at the far side of the room and opening it
spoke softly to someone inside. A second later the nurse stuck her
head through the opening. She was a smiling, angular woman of forty,
with fluffy, mouse-coloured hair, and a frosty tip to her nose.

"Do you wish to see the doctor, Lady Clifford?"

She spoke ingratiatingly, with a hiss of badly fitting false teeth.

"Yes, is he there?"

The nurse disappeared and was presently replaced by Dr. Sartorius, who
came inside and closed the door behind him. Acknowledging Esther's
presence by the merest flicker of the eye, he bent his head and
listened attentively to what the Frenchwoman told him. As she spoke
her eyes searched his face eagerly, but his heavy features remained
impassive.

"Ah, it won't hurt him to hear good news," he replied indifferently.
"Go in now, if you care to, he's wide awake."

To Esther's surprise, the Frenchwoman put out her hand to her
sister-in-law with a gracious gesture.

"You tell him, Dido, dear," she said gently, "I know you would like to."

"Thank you, Therese."

With a grateful smile the old lady disappeared into the bedroom,
followed by the doctor, a