l the manservant waited, and Anstice, pitying his evident
anxiety, spoke reassuringly to him as he took his coat. "Your mistress
is much better now--with a little care she will soon be all right, I
hope."

"Thank you, sir." The man's voice quivered with feeling. "We--we are all
very anxious when our lady is not well."

"Of course." Anstice took the hat the servant held and moved to the
door. "Is that nine striking? I didn't know it was so late."

Yet in spite of the lateness of the hour Anstice did not drive home at a
particularly rapid pace. Something in the episode just closed had
intrigued him, piqued his curiosity as well as stimulated his interest;
and he was wondering, as he drove, what there was about his patient
which suggested a mystery--something, at least, unusual unexpected, in
her character or surroundings.

"She's uncommonly handsome--but so are heaps of women. Nice house,
plenty of money, I should say, and of course she herself is well bred.
Yet there is something odd about her--about her manner, rather. Looks at
one queerly--almost quizzically--and yet when she smiled she looked
extraordinarily sad." He turned a corner rather carelessly and a
surprised motor-cyclist sounded his horn reproachfully. "I wonder--is
she a widow? There was no sign of a husband, though I believe the
servant said something about a child. Anyhow"--he had reached his own
house now and slowed down before the gate--"I will see her to-morrow and
perhaps learn a little more about her--if there is anything to learn. If
not--well, women love to appear mysterious. There never was a woman yet
who didn't long to rival the Sphinx and appear an enigma in the eyes of
wondering men!"

And he went in to his belated dinner with a rather cynical smile on his
lips.

CHAPTER II

Just as Anstice was starting out next morning an urgent telephone
message came through, requesting his help at a suddenly imperative
operation at a country house some miles distant.

Although he had been in the district only a few months, Anstice was
already known to his professional brothers as a daring and skilful
surgeon; and one man--the one who now called upon his services--was in
the habit of wondering openly why so brilliant a man was content to bury
himself in the country instead of seeking fame and fortune in some one
of the big cities of the world.

There were those who could have given a very good guess at the reasons
which led Anstice to shun