Upon which, from the open window overhead, came a voice: "I won't be
wrapped up in cotton batting! Send Mary Robertson upstairs."

"Haven't I any rights?" Willy called back, good-naturedly, and Doctor
Lavendar retorted:

"Maybe you have, but I have many wrongs. Come along, Mary."

She went up, saying to herself: "I'll not speak of it. I'll just say
I've come to see him." She was so nervous when she entered the room that
her breath caught in her throat and she could hardly say, "How do you
do?"

The old man was in bed with a copy of _Robinson Crusoe_ on the table
beside him. He held out a veined and trembling hand:

"William's keeping me alive so he can charge me for two calls a day.
Well, my dear, what can I do for you?"

Mrs. Robertson sat down in a big armchair and said, panting, that--that
it was terribly hot.

Doctor Lavendar watched her from under his heavy, drooping eyelids.

"There was something I was going to ask you about," she said, "but it's
no matter. Doctor King says you are sick."

"Don't believe all Doctor King tells you."

"I just wanted to get advice for--for somebody else. But it's no
matter."

"Let's hear about the 'somebody else.'"

"They are not Old Chester people--so you won't mind if I don't name
names?"

"Not in the least," said Doctor Lavendar, genially. "Call 'em Smith;
that's a somewhat general title."

"Oh--no, that's not their name," she said, panic-stricken--then saw that
he had meant it as a joke, and said, trying to smile, yes, there _were_
a good many Smiths in the world! Then suddenly her misery rose like a
wave, and swept her into words: "These people are terribly unhappy, at
least the mother is, because--" She paused, stammered, felt she had gone
too far, and stumbled into contradictions which could not have misled
anyone, certainly not Doctor Lavendar. "They, these people, had let
their child be adopted--oh, a great many years ago, because they--they
were not so situated that they could bring him--it--up. But they could,
now. And they wanted him, they wanted him--her, I mean," said Mary; "I
believe it was a little girl. But the little girl didn't want to come
back to them. And the person who had taken her influenced her against
her parents, who had done _everything_ for her!--given her everything a
child could want. It's cruel," said Mary. "Cruel! I know the parents,
and--"

"Mary," said Doctor Lavendar, gently, "so do I."

She recoiled as if from a blow. "No--