attentive, and very successful hitherto in dealing with the dear old gentleman. But my first duty is to Mr. Saffron. If it will ease matters at all, pray hold yourself at liberty to show this note to Dr. Irechester. May I beg you to be kind enough to call at your earliest convenience, though it is, alas, a rough evening to ask you to come out?

Yours very faithfully, Hector Beaumaroy"

Hector Beaumaroy

"How very awkward!" exclaimed Mary. She had prided herself on a rigorous abstention from "poaching"; she fancied that men were very ready to accuse women of not "playing the game" and had been resolved to give no colour to such an accusation. "Mr. Saffron has sent for me—professionally. He's ill, it seems," she said to Cynthia.

"Why shouldn't he?"

"He's a patient of Dr. Irechester's."

"But people often change their doctors, don't they? He thinks you're cleverer, I suppose, and I expect you are, really."

There was no use in expounding professional etiquette to Cynthia. Mary had to decide the point for herself—and quickly; the old man might be seriously ill. Beaumaroy had said, at the Naylors', that his attacks were sometimes alarming.

Suddenly she recollected that he had also seemed to hint that they were more alarming than Irechester appeared to appreciate; she had not taken much notice of that hint at the time, but now it recurred to her very distinctly. There was no suggestion of the sort in Beaumaroy's letter. Beaumaroy had written a letter that could be shown to Irechester! Was that dishonesty, or only a pardonable diplomacy?

"I suppose I must go—and explain to Dr. Irechester afterwards." She rang the bell to recall the maid, and gave her answer. "Say I will be round as soon as possible. Is the messenger walking?"

"He's got a bicycle, Miss."

"All right. I shall be there almost as soon as he is."

She seemed to have no alternative, just as Beaumaroy had none. Yet while she put on her mackintosh—it was very wet and misty—got out her car, and lit her lamps, her face was still fretful and her mind disturbed. For now—as she looked back on it—Beaumaroy's conversation with her at Old Place seemed just a prelude to this summons, and meant to prepare her for it. Perhaps that too was 

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