d
forgotten that William Muller lived.

She had been thinking of Maria all day. She was the woman whom Doctor
McCall loved. By the time night came Kitty had a maddening desire to
see again this woman that he loved--to touch her, hear her speak. She
had been used to regard her as a disagreeable bore, but now she looked
on her as a woman set apart from all the world. She had made a poor
excuse to come up to the Water-cure: now that she was there she half
forgot it. Maria's delicate face, her quick grace of motion, her
clear, well-bred voice, were so many stabs to Kitty, each of which
touched the quick. Maria's hair hung loosely over her shoulders:
it was very soft and thick. She wondered if Doctor McCall had ever
touched it. "Though what right have _I_ to know?" For some reason this
last was the pang that tugged hardest at Kitty's heart.

"I brought a message for Doctor McCall," she said, fumbling in her
pocket--"that is, for you to deliver to him, Maria."

Miss Muller turned her shoulder to her: "Doctor McCall is gone--I
don't know where."

She started forward: "Gone? To come again, you mean?"

"No--never to come back!" vehemently.

Kitty stood by her silent a moment: "William told me that you sent for
him, that he loved you, Maria--that you would be married some of these
days."

Miss Muller hesitated: there was no use in revealing her humiliation
to this girl: "There was an obstacle in the way. Doctor McCall is
peculiarly hedged in by circumstances."

"And you could not find the way of escape?"

"No." She did not see the flash of triumph on the girl's face, or
notice when she went out.

Kitty was human. "At least," she muttered going down the hill, "I
shall not have to see _her_ his wife." When she had reached the
Book-shop she took from her pocket a coarse yellow envelope containing
a telegram directed to Hugh Guinness in his father's care. She turned
it over. This was a bond between them which even Maria did not share:
she alone knew that he was Hugh Guinness.

"What am I to do with this?"

Doctor McCall was gone, never to come back. It was like touching his
hand far off to read this message to him. Besides, Kitty was curious.
She opened the envelope.

"Come to me at once. You will soon be free," without any signature
but an initial. The melodramatic mystery of it would have cautioned
knowing women, but Kitty was not knowing.

"If he had received this an hour ago, the 'way of escape' would have
bee