of that, for 19Garlett joined up at once. I remember how surprised we all were. Somehow it didn’t seem necessary then—not for a man with a stake in the world. But he was mad to go, and he was in France early in ’fifteen.”

19

“She says it was then that she fell ill.”

“She was always ailing—she’s a thoroughly unhealthy woman,” Dr. Maclean spoke with abrupt decision. “I was looking at Dr. Prince’s casebook the other day, and I came across her entry. She was an unhealthy child and an unhealthy girl—far too fussy about herself always. Well I remember her bringing me the War Office telegram with the news of that awful wound of Garlett’s. But she wouldn’t go to France, not she! Yet—” he hesitated—“in her own queer way she’s absolutely devoted to him.”

Agatha Cheale said in a low voice, “None of us thought he could get over that wound.”

“Why, of course!” the doctor exclaimed. “You were there, Miss Cheale, in that French war hospital. But I suppose you’d known Harry Garlett long before then—as you’re his cousin?”

He looked at her rather hard.

“I’d never met Cousin Harry till we met in that strange way in France,” she answered composedly.

“He told me once that he owed his life to you.”

“That, of course, is nonsense,” she said in a hard tone.

“He has plenty to be grateful to you for now.”

Agatha Cheale’s usually pale face became suffused with dusky red. It was an overwhelming, an unbecoming blush, and, with a quickening of the pulse, Dr. Maclean told himself that this involuntary betrayal of deep feeling answered a question which he had half ashamedly often asked himself in the last year—was Agatha Cheale secretly attached to Harry Garlett? Was that the real reason she was spending her life, her intelligence, her undoubted cleverness, in looking after his sickly, tiresome wife?

Doctors know of many hidden tragedies, of many secret dramas in being, and this particular doctor knew more than most, for he had a very kindly heart. He felt glad that Mrs. Garlett’s companion was leaving the Thatched House, though her doing so would throw a good deal of trouble on him.

20After he had gone, Agatha Cheale went over to the window. There she pressed her forehead 

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