hy, she helped me to live again! I am
ashamed to remember how at the bottom of all things I was when you came
up before, Brand,--just pounding the wall, as old Robbie expresses it.
You must have thought me a fool and a coward."

"I thought you neither, my dear fellow. You were coming through a
stiffer fight than any of us have been called to face. Thank God, you
have won."

"I owe a lot to you, Brand, and still more to Miss Gray. I wish she
were here to see you. She is away for the week-end."

"Away! J--just now?" exclaimed the doctor, almost surprised into
another slip.

"Yes; she went last night. She is week-ending in the neighbourhood. She
said she was not going far, and should be back with me early on Monday
morning. But she seemed to want a change of scene, and thought this a
good opportunity, as I shall have you here most of the time. I say,
Brand, I do think it is extraordinarily good of you to come all this
way to see me. You know, from such a man as yourself it is almost
overwhelming."

"You must not be overwhelmed, my dear chap; and, though I very truly
came to see you, I am also up, about another old friend in the near
neighbourhood in whom I am interested. I only mention this in order to
be quite honest, and to lift from off you any possible burden of
feeling yourself my only patient."

"Oh, thanks!" said Garth. "It lessens my compunction without
diminishing my gratitude. And now you must be wanting a brush up and
breakfast, and here am I selfishly keeping you from both. And I say,
Brand,"--Garth coloured hotly, boyishly, and hesitated,--"I am awfully
sorry you will have no companion at your meals, Miss Gray being away. I
do not like to think of you having them alone, but I--I always have
mine by myself. Simpson attends to them."

He could not see the doctor's quick look of comprehension, but the
understanding sympathy of the tone in which he said: "Ah, yes. Yes, of
course," without further comment, helped Garth to add: "I couldn't even
have Miss Gray with me. We always take our meals apart. You cannot
imagine how awful it is chasing your food all round your plate, and
never sure it is not on the cloth, after all, or on your tie, while you
are hunting for it elsewhere."

"No, I can't imagine," said the doctor. "No one could who had not been
through it. But can you bear it better with Simpson than with Nurse
Rosemary? She is trained to that sort of thing, you know."

Garth coloured again. "Well, y