put on the tire."

"Well, you were running round soon after," answered the Young Doctor.
"But as for the five dollars, I only took it to keep you quiet. So long
as you had a grievance you would talk and talk and talk, and you never
were so astonished in your life as when I took that five dollars."

"I've taken care never to dislocate my elbow since."

"No, not your elbow," remarked the Young Doctor meaningly, and turned to
Mona, who had now regained her composure.

"Well, I shan't call you in to reduce the dislocation--that's the
medical term, isn't it?" persisted Kitty, with fire in her eyes.

"What is the dislocation?" asked Mona, with a subtle, inquiring look but
a manner which conveyed interest.

The Young Doctor smiled. "It's only her way of saying that my mind is
unhinged and that I ought to be sent to a private hospital for two."

"No--only one," returned Kitty.

"Marriage means common catastrophe, doesn't it?" he asked quizzically.

"Generally it means that one only is permanently injured," replied
Kitty, lifting a tumbler and looking through it at him as though to see
if the glass was properly polished.

Mona was mystified. At first she thought there had been oblique
references to her husband, but these remarks about marriage would
certainly exclude him. Yet, would they exclude him? During the time in
which Shiel's history was not known might there not have been--but no,
it could not have been so, for it was Kitty who had sent the letter
which had brought her to Askatoon.

"Are you to be married--soon?" she asked of Kitty, with a friendly yet
trembling smile, for her agitation was, despite appearances, troubling
every nerve.

"I've thought of it quite lately," responded Kitty calmly, seating
herself now and looking straight into the eyes of the woman, who was
suggesting more truth than she knew.

"May I congratulate you? Am I justified on such slight acquaintance? I
am sure you have chosen wisely," was the smooth rejoinder.

Kitty did not shrink from looking Mona in the eyes. "It isn't quite time
for congratulations yet, and I'm not sure I've chosen wisely. My family
very strongly disapproves. I can't help that, of course, and I may have
to elope and take the consequences."

"It takes two to elope," interposed the Young Doctor, who thought that
Kitty, in her humorous extravagance, was treading very dangerous ground
indeed. He was thinking of Crozier and Kitty; but Kitty was thinking
of Crozie