cuit. "Unless, my love, you prefer
me to order cook to whip you up an egg-nog.--Mrs. Ocock is, I regret to
say, entirely without appetite again," he went on, as the door closed
behind his wife. "What she eats is not enough to keep a sparrow going.
You must prove your skill, doctor, and oblige us by prescribing a still
more powerful tonic or appetiser. The last had no effect whatever." He
spoke from the hearthrug, where he had gone to warm his skirts at the
wood fire, audibly fingering the while a nest of sovereigns in a
waistcoat pocket.

"I feared as much," said Mahony gravely; and therewith took the plunge.

When some twenty minutes later he emerged from the house, he was
unaccompanied, and himself pulled the front door to behind him. He
stood frowning heavily as he snapped the catches of his gloves, and
fell foul of the groom over a buckle of the harness, in a fashion that
left the man open-mouthed. "Blow me, if I don't believe he's got the
sack!" thought the man in driving townwards.

The abrupt stoppage of Richard's visits to Plevna House staggered Mary.
And since she could get nothing out of her husband, she tied on her
bonnet and went off hotfoot to question her friend. But Mrs. Henry
tearfully declared her ignorance she had listened in fear and trembling
to the sound of the two angry voices--and Henry was adamant. They had
already called in another doctor.

Mary came home greatly distressed, and, Richard still wearing his
obstinate front, she ended by losing her temper. He knew well enough,
said she, it was not her way to interfere or to be inquisitive about
his patients; but this was different; this had to do with one of her
dearest friends; she must know. In her ears rang Agnes's words: "Henry
told me, love, he wouldn't insult me by repeating what your husband
said of me. Oh, Mary, isn't it dreadful? And when I liked him so as a
doctor!"--She now repeated them aloud.

This was too much for Mahony. He blazed up. "The confounded
mischiefmonger--the backbiter! Well, if you will have it, wife, here
you are ... here's the truth. What I said to Ocock was: I said, my good
man, if you want your wife to get over her next confinement more
quickly, keep the sherry-decanter out of her reach."

Mary gasped and sank on a chair, letting her arms flop to her side.
"Richard!" she ejaculated. "Oh, Richard, you never did!"

"I did indeed, my dear.--Oh well, not in just those words, of course;
we doctors must always wrap