to resume his journey. The movement attracted the girl's
attention.

"Lama!" called Jenny imperiously. "Come here this instant!"

Lama put his head on one side, nodded and smiled at her indulgently, and
trotted on.

* * * * *

"Oh, dear me!" said Jenny, sighing out loud.

CHAPTER III

(I)

There lived (and still lives, I believe) in the small Yorkshire village
of Tarfield a retired doctor, entirely alone except for his servants, in
a large house. It is a very delightful house, only--when I stayed there
not long ago--it seemed to me that the doctor did not know how to use
it. It stands in its own grounds of two or three acres, on the
right-hand side of the road to a traveler going north, separated by a
row of pollarded limes from the village street, and approached--or,
rather, supposed to be approached--by a Charles II. gate of iron-scroll
work. I say "supposed to be approached" because the gate is invariably
kept locked, and access can only be gained to the house through the side
gate from the stable-yard. The grounds were abominably neglected when I
saw them; grass was growing on every path, and as fine a crop of weeds
surged up amongst the old autumn flowers as ever I have seen. The house,
too, was a sad sight. There here two big rooms, one on either side of
the little entrance-hall--one a dining-room, the other a sort of
drawing-room--and both were dreary and neglected-looking places. In the
one the doctor occasionally ate, in the other he never sat except when a
rare visitor came to see him, and the little room supposed to be a study
at the foot of the stairs in the inner hall that led through the kitchen
was hardly any better. I was there, I say, last autumn, and the
condition of the place must have been very much the same as that in
which it was when Frank came to Tarfield in October.

For the fact was that the doctor--who was possessed of decent private
means--devoted the whole of his fortune, the whole of his attention, and
the whole of his life--such as it was--to the study of toxins upstairs.

Toxins, I understand, have something to do with germs. Their study
involves, at any rate at present, a large stock of small animals, such
as mice and frogs and snakes and guinea-pigs and rabbits, who are given
various diseases and then studied with loving attention. I saw the
doctor's menagerie when I went to see him about Frank; they were chiefly
housed in a large room o