d lady's brother is coming down.
He'll take charge. I found his name in her papers last night.
Telegraphed." He was looking through the door. "Here's the answer."

A telegraph messenger appeared.

Astounding man!

He read the telegram. "Yes, that's all right. He'll be here by the
eleven train at Tidborough. I'll take Miss Bright now."

Effie appeared.

Sabre had the feeling that if he opened the next thought in his mind, an
undertaker would rise out of the ground with a coffin. This astonishing
man, coming upon his overwrought state, made him feel hysterical. He
turned to Effie and gave her both his hands. "The doctor's taking you,
Effie. It's been dreadful for you. It's all over now. Try to leave it
out of your mind for a bit."

She smiled sadly. "Good-by, Mr. Sabre. Thank you so much, so very much,
for coming and staying. What I should have done without you I daren't
think. I've never known any one so good as you've been to me."

"I've done nothing, Effie, except feel sorry for you."

He saw her into the car. No, he would not take a lift.

"Well, leave everything to me," said the doctor. The chauffeur spoke to
him about some engine trouble. "Yes, I'll see to that. Leave everything
to me, Jenkins."

Even his car!

VI

Sabre, passed on from the ordeal of the night to the ordeal of the day
by this interlude of the astonishing doctor, did not know how
overwrought he was until he was at home again and come to Mabel seated
at breakfast. The thought in his mind as he walked had been the thought
in his mind as he had sat on after the death, waiting for morning. After
this, after the war had done this, how was he to go on enduring the war
and refused part in it? He dreaded meeting Mabel. He dreaded going on to
the office and meeting Fortune and Twyning. To none of these people, to
no one he could meet, could he explain how he felt about Young Perch and
what he had gone through with Mrs. Perch, nor why, because of what he
felt, more poignant than ever was his need to get into the war. And yet
with these feelings he must go on facing these people and go on meeting
the war in every printed page, in every sight, in every conversation.
Unbearable! He could not.

Mabel looked up from her breakfast. "Well, I do think--"

This was the beginning of it. He felt himself digging his nails into the
palms of his hands. "I've been up with old Mrs. Perch--"

"I know you have. I sent around to the Farguses. I must say I do