fair-haired brother, had dark pouches under them.

18Dr. Maclean told himself that she had made a mistake in giving up the busy, useful, interesting life of secretary to the boss of a London trading company.

18

He asked suddenly: “When are you going to have your holiday?”

“I don’t know that I shall take a holiday.” She looked at him with a touch of tragic intensity. “I’m all right, really—though I don’t sleep as well as I might.”

“Don’t be angry with me for asking you a straight question.”

A wave of colour flooded her pale face. “I won’t promise to answer it!”

“Why do you go on with this thankless job?” he said earnestly. “Within a week or two at most I could find a competent nurse who could manage Mrs. Garlett. Why should you waste your life over that cantankerous, disagreeable woman?”

And then Agatha Cheale said something which very much surprised Dr. Maclean.

“I am thinking of giving up the job in September. That’s the real reason why I’m not going to take a holiday now. You see,” she hesitated perceptibly, “I’m afraid it will terribly upset Cousin Harry—my leaving here, I mean.”

“Of course it will upset him. Thanks to you, he can go off on his cricketing jaunts with a light heart. Master Harry’s a man to be envied——”

She turned and faced him. “With a wife like that?”

“He married her, after all!”

“Why did he marry her?”

Dr. Maclean hesitated a moment. Then he answered frankly: “Harry Garlett married Emily Jones because he was a simple, good-looking lad aged twenty-two, and she a clever, determined woman aged twenty-seven who was in love with him. Old Jones was a queer, suspicious creature—the Etna China Company was a one-man concern in his day. A business friend asked old Jones to give a young man in whom he was interested a job; and there came along that cheery young chap.”

“They’ve been married thirteen years to-day.”

“God bless my soul—so they have!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean. “But the war took a great chunk out 

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