inquired.

"The pain at thinking of your going away is very great," he
answered. One hand on the newel post, he bent down, his head on
his arm for an instant. "Oh, you're making me _pay_!" he groaned.
But the next moment he turned on her defiantly. "I'll not learn!
If this was the only way for me to meet you, then I'll not regret a
single thing I've done. I'll not! I'll not! I'll not pay! It
all comes back to me, just what I said before. What couldn't we
do, _together_?--I need you--I need you!"

"You must go to your room. You've been standing for an hour."

"But I've been with you. I can't hope for another hour like this.
You'll be leaving me. But I'd live the hour over again--in hell
with you!"

"I told you, when we all gave parole, that I would exact my price
of you, in regret, in remorse."

"You shall not have it in regret, I'll not regret. But I'm paying!
See, I'm telling you you may go, that you must go--away from me."

CHAPTER XX

THE ART OF DOCTOR JAMIESON

Eleazar proved a faithful messenger once more. Before the evening
shadows had greatly lengthened, three figures appeared at the
lower end of the approach to Tallwoods mansion house. Jeanne, as
usual looking out from their window, saw these.

"It is the old man, Madame," she commented. "And yes, _Monsieur le
Docteur_ at last--thank the _Bon Dieu_! But one other--who is
that?"

[Illustration: "It is the old man, Madame," commented Jeanne.]

It was a very worn and weary doctor who presently swung out of his
saddle at the gallery step. His clothing was stained with mud, his
very shoulders drooping with fatigue. In the past few days he
scarcely had slept, but had been here and there attending to the
wants of surviving sufferers of the boat encounter. None the less
he smiled as he held out his hand to Josephine.

"How is my patient?" he inquired. "Plumb well, of course. And how
about this new one--I thought I fixed him up before he came home.
I've been grunting at Eleazar all the way, telling him it's all
foolishness, my coming away out here--he could have fixed Dunwody's
leg up, somehow. I suppose you know the old man's son, Hector. He
came along for good measure, I reckon."

The young man referred to now advanced, made a leg and pulled a
black forelock. He was a strapping youth, attired in the latest
fashion of French St. Genevieve. He bowed to this lady; but at the
same time, the glance he cast at her French wait