ppear
as if she had not heard.

He turned to Violet, faintly smiling. "Shall we take a stroll in the
garden?"

She rose, flinging a gay glance at Olga. "Just two turns!" she said.

He held aside the curtain for her, and followed her out, with a
careless jest. The two who were left heard them laughing as they
sauntered away. Olga rose with a shiver.

"What's the matter?" said Nick.

To which she answered, "Nothing," knowing that he would not believe her,
knowing also that he would understand enough to ask no more.

She went to the piano, put aside the mandolin, and began to play. Not
even to Nick, her hero and her close confidant, would she explain the
absolute repugnance that the association of Max Wyndham with her friend
had inspired in her.

But though she played with apparent absorption, her ears were strained
to catch the sound of their voices in the garden behind her, the girl's
light chatter, her companion's brief, cynical laugh. For she knew by the
sure intuition which is a woman's inner and unerring vision, that jest
or trifle as he might his keen brain was actively employed in some
subtle investigation too obscure for her to fathom, and that behind his
badinage and behind his cynicism there sat a man who watched.

CHAPTER VI

THE PAIN-KILLER

"I am going over to Brethaven to see Mrs. Briggs to-day," Olga announced
nearly a week later, waylaying Max after breakfast on his way to the
surgery with the air of one prepared to resist opposition. "Are you
wanting the car this morning, Dr. Wyndham?"

She knew that he would be engaged at the cottage-hospital that morning,
but it was one of Dr. Ratcliffe's strict rules that the car should never
be used unprofessionally without express permission from himself or his
assistant. Naturally Olga resented having to observe this rule in her
father's absence and her manner betrayed as much, but she was too
conscientious to neglect its observance.

"You don't propose to go alone, I suppose?" said Max, pausing.

This was another of her father's rules and one which Olga had often
vainly attempted to persuade him to rescind. Under these circumstances,
Max's question seemed little short of an insult.

"I don't see what that has to do with it," she said.

Max looked at his watch, then turned squarely and faced her. "With me,
you mean. Very likely not. But there is a remote connection or I
shouldn't ask. Are you going to take Nick with you?"

"He is going p