ted Miss Clifford. "Is it a headache?"

Aline replied that it was both backache and headache. She was a
steely-faced woman of middle age with gimlet eyes and dank black hair
in a ragged fringe. As she spoke she eyed the company at the table
with a sort of malicious triumph.

"Oh----!" exclaimed Miss Clifford, slightly dismayed. "I don't quite
like the sound of that--do you, doctor?"

Without answering her, Sartorius finished his coffee and rose.

"_Moi je crois,_" volunteered Aline with enjoyment, "_que Madame a un
peu de fievre._"

"Oh, I hope not!" The old lady glanced quickly at Roger and then at
Esther, who both remained impassive.

"It may be nothing at all," Esther said soothingly, just as she had
done on a former occasion. "I shouldn't get upset."

However, within a quarter of an hour, the doctor summoned Esther to
Lady Clifford's bedroom. Lady Clifford certainly showed preliminary
symptoms of typhoid, he informed her, so that it would be as well to
administer the necessary doses of anti-toxin. Taking the thing in time
like this was a good chance of warding it off.

"Naturally we won't mention this to Sir Charles," he added. "We'll let
him think she's merely suffering from a cold."

The Frenchwoman was lying limp and still in the middle of her low,
gilded bed, gazing with unseeing eyes at the rose canopy above. Her
hair was pushed back ruthlessly, revealing an unsuspected height of
forehead, which somewhat altered her appearance. She was very pale, a
pallor with a tinge of yellow in it. She received the injection
mechanically, paying scant attention to either the doctor or Esther.
She gave a slight nod when the former advised her to remain in bed for
a day or so, her manner suggesting the complete exhaustion which
follows violent hysteria, but Esther thought the exhaustion was only
physical. It seemed to her that Lady Clifford's brain was active, that
she was thinking deeply.

As soon as she was free, Esther put on her hat and coat and joined
Roger in the car outside. Once alone with him she somewhat reluctantly
let him draw out of her exactly what had occurred that morning.

"I can't in the least understand what it was she was so furious about,"
she ended.

After a short silence Roger said:

"I can. In fact, I was perfectly sure she was going to kick up a hell
of a row. Forgive the language! I warned my father she would."

He stopped, deliberating with a frown on his face, as th