ff with
"one of them other women and leave her if she went and 'ad a byby." She
cried even more bitterly afterwards, as she wondered how she ever could 'a
dreamed o' being that wicked! Bough might kill her--that he might!--or go
back to South Africa without her; she never would give in, not now. Never
now--the Doctor might depend upon that, she assured him, drying her
swollen eyes with a cheap lace-edged handkerchief loaded with patchouli.
She was shaken and nervous, and in need of a sedative, and Saxham, having
the drugs at hand, made her up a simple draught, unluckily omitting to
make a memorandum of the prescription in his pocket-book, and gave her the
first dose of it before she went away, profuse in thanks, and carrying the
bottle.

And he saw his waiting patients, and stepped into his waiting brougham,
and, having for once no urgent call upon his professional attention, dined
with Mildred at Pont Street, and was coaxed into promising to take her to
the opening performance of a classic play which was to be revived three
nights later at a fashionable West End theatre. Mildred had set her heart
upon being seen in a box at this particular function, and Saxham had had
some trouble to gratify her wish.

He remembered with startling clearness every remote detail of that night
at the theatre. Mildred had looked exquisitely fair and girlish in her
white dress, with a necklace of pearls he had given her rising and falling
on the lovely virginal bosom, where the lover's eyes dwelt and lingered in
the masterful hunger of his heart. Soon, soon, that hunger of his for
possession would be gratified! It was April, and at the end of July, when
work was growing slack, they would be married. They were going North for
the honeymoon. A wealthy and grateful patient of Saxham's had placed at
his disposal a grey, historic Scotch turret-mansion, standing upon mossy
lawns, with woods of larch and birch and ancient Spanish chestnuts all
about it, looking over the silver Tweed. In the heat and hurry of his
daily round of work, Saxham, who had spent an autumn holiday at this
place, would find himself dreaming about it. The smell of the heather
would spice the air that was no longer hot and sickly with the effluvia of
the city, and the hum of the drowsy black bees, and the cooing of the
wood-pigeons would replace the din of the London traffic, and Mildred's
eyes would be looking into his, and her cool, fragrant lips would be
freely yielded, a