ean, then, that, to cap it all, a functional
disorder of my heart has become organic, so that I would inevitably die
under another operation? or even at a sudden shock? And that particular
operation is now the solitary chance of saving my life! The dilemma is
neat, isn't it? How God must laugh at the jokes He contrives," said
Patricia. "I wish that I could laugh. And I will. I don't care whether
you think me a reprobate or not, Dr. Pemberton, I want a good stiff
drink of whiskey--the Musgrave size."

He gave it to her.

II

Patricia had as yet an hour to spend in Lichfield before her train left.
She passed it in the garden of her own home, where she had first seen
Rudolph Musgrave and he had fought with Pevensey. All that seemed very
long ago.

The dahlia leaves, she noticed, were edged with yellow. She must look to
it that the place was more frequently watered; and that the bulbs were
dug up in September. Next year she meant to set the dahlias thinly, like
a hedge....

"Oh, yes, I meant to. Only I won't be alive next year," she recollected.

She went about the garden to see if Ned had weeded out the wild-pea
vines--a pest which had invaded the trim place lately. Only a few of the
intruders remained, burnt-out and withered as they are annually by the
mid-summer sun. There would be no more fight until next April.

"Oh, and I have prayed to You, I have always tried to do what You
wanted, and I never asked You to let me be born locked up in a
good-for-nothing Musgrave body! And You won't even let me see a
wild-pea vine again! That isn't much to ask, I think. But You won't let
me do it. You really do have rather funny notions about Your jokes."

She began to laugh.

"Oh, very well!" Patricia said aloud. "It is none of my affair that You
elect to run Your world on an extremely humorous basis."

She was at Matocton in good time for luncheon.

III

Colonel Musgrave had a brief interview with his wife after luncheon. He
began with quiet remonstrance, and ended with an unheard extenuation of
his presumption. Patricia's speech on this occasion was of an unfettered
and heady nature.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she said, when she had finally
paused for breath, and had wiped away her tears, and had powdered her
nose, viciously, "to bully a weak and defenseless woman in this way. I
dare say everybody in the house has heard us--brawling and squabbling
just like a hod-carrier and his wife. W