. "Well, Dr. Anstice, if you're not in a hurry, walk round with
us, will you? You aren't busy on a Sunday afternoon, I suppose?"

"Well, not very." In spite of himself Anstice felt a strange reluctance
to part from his new friends. "I was going for a walk, as you see, and
if I may come with you----"

So it fell out that for the first Sunday since he had arrived in
Littlefield Anstice's walk was no solitary stroll, companioned only by
his own moody or rebellious thoughts, but a pleasant interlude in a life
which in spite of incessant and often engrossing work, was on the whole
a joyless one.

This afternoon Iris Wayne looked little more than a schoolgirl in her
short skirt and brightly coloured jersey, a cap pulled well down over
her curls, which nevertheless rioted over her forehead in entrancing
confusion. It was very evident that she and her father were on the best
of terms; and if, as seemed probable, Sir Richard was proud of his
pretty daughter, it was no less certain that she, on her side, thought
her father the most wonderful of men.

The trio chatted pleasantly as they crossed the sunny golf links, and
Sir Richard told himself that his impressions of this man, gathered from
hasty visions of him about the village, or from the chatter of the
countryside, impressions which had labelled him as a morose, sullen kind
of fellow, had certainly been fallacious.

Reserved he might be; but although his manner was quiet and his smile a
trifle sad, there was nothing morose about him to-day; and if his
conversation was not particularly brilliant Sir Richard thought none the
worse of him for that.

So pleased, indeed, was he with his new acquaintance that when they
reached the Club House on the return journey he pressed the young man to
accompany them home for a cup of tea.

"I'm sure your patients must cease from troubling on a Sunday afternoon
at any rate," he said genially, "and you haven't anyone waiting for you
at home, have you?"

With a rather melancholy smile Anstice admitted that there was no one
waiting for him at home; and since Iris seconded her father's invitation
with a kind little entreaty on her own account, he accepted their joint
hospitality without further demur.

Greengates, the home of the Waynes, was a stately old house, more
dignified, though perhaps less charming, than the fascinating Cherry
Orchard; but its very dignity gave charm; and it formed a by no means
incongruous background for this y