r breakfast. Certainly, her ladyship might go in.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, I am so glad you are come!" It was the voice of a
great relief that came from the figure on the bed; the voice of one who
had waited long, of a traveller who sees his haven, a castaway adrift
who spies a sail.

"Now, dear Mrs. Picture, you are not to get up, but lie still till I
come back. I'm going to try to catch Dr. Nash, and must hurry off. But I
_am_ coming back."

"Oh--all right!" There was disappointment in her tone, but it was
docility itself. She added, however, with the barest trace of
remonstrance:--"I'm quite _well_, you know. I don't _want_ the doctor."

Gwen laughed. "Oh no--it's not for you! I've ... I've a message for him.
I shall soon be back." An excusable fiction, she thought, under the
circumstances.

She was only just in time to catch Dr. Nash, whose gig was already in
possession of him at his garden-gate with a palpably medical lamp over
it, and a "surgery bell" whose polish seemed to guarantee its owner's
prescriptions. "Get down and talk to me in the house," said her young
ladyship. "Who is it you were going to? Anyone serious?"

"Only Sir Cropton Fuller."

"He can wait.... Can't he?"

"He'll have to. No hurry!" The doctor found time to add, between the
gate and the house:--"I go to see him every day to prevent his taking
medicine. He's extremely well. I don't get many cases of illness, among
my patients." He turned round to look at Gwen, on the doorstep. "Your
ladyship doesn't look very bad," said he.

Gwen shook her head. "It's nothing to do with me," she said. "Nor with
illness! It's old Mrs. Prichard at Strides Cottage."

The doctor stood a moment, latchkey in hand. "The old lady whose mind is
giving way?" said he. He had knitted his brows a little; and, having
spoken, he knitted his lips a little.

"We are speaking of the same person," said Gwen. She followed the doctor
into his parlour, and accepted the seat he offered. He stood facing her,
not relaxing his expression, which worked out as a sort of mild
grimness, tempered by a tune which his thumbs in the armpits of his
waistcoat enabled him to play on its top-pockets. It was a slow tune.
Gwen continued:--"But her mind is _not_ giving way."

The doctor let that expression subside into mere seriousness. He took a
chair, to say:--"Your ladyship has, perhaps, not heard all particulars
of the case."

"Every word."

"You surprise me. Are you aware that th