patient. For her part, a
genuine compassion for the little man was mixed with some liking; he
was a furtive and vulgar creature at the best, but his dependence on
her, his helplessness and trouble, reached to the maternal in her
honest heart. She could manage him; but for her strategy he would
have lived in his bed, day and night, in a sort of half torpor.

"It's remarkable what a control you have over these low natures,
Mary," Dr. Pond said to her. He had come home one afternoon to find
that she had actually sent Smith out for a walk. "I confess it's a
case that's beyond me altogether. There doesn't seem to be any thing
to take hold of in the man. It would be better if he felt a little
pain now and again; it would give one an opening, as it were."

Seated in a low chair in the window, Mary was hemming dusters. She
looked up at him thoughtfully.

"Father," she said, "what do you think was the matter with him in the
first place? What was the disease that Professor Fish cured?"

Dr. Pond shook his white head vaguely.

"Impossible to say," he answered. "It looks like, a mental case,
doesn't it? And yet----You see, Fish has had so many specialities. He
was in practice in Harley Street as a nerve man. Then, next thing,
one hears of him in heart surgery. He's had a go at electricity
lately. And between you and me--he's a great man, of course--but if
it wasn't for his position and all that, we'd be calling him a
quack."

"Then you can't tell what the disease was?" persisted Mary.

"No," said Dr. Pond. "Nor even if there was a disease. For all I
know, Fish may have been vivisecting him. He wouldn't stop at a thing
like that, if I know anything about him."

"He ought to have told us," said Mary.

"Yes," agreed the Doctor. "But Fish always does as he likes. How long
has Smith been out now, Mary?"

"He went out at three," she answered. "And now it's half-past five.
He ought to be in. I think I'll put my hat on, father, and go after
him."

Dr. Pond nodded. "I would," he said.

The road along which Smith had departed ran past the village, and
Mary walked forth by it to seek her patient. It was a splendid still
afternoon; the trees by the wayside stood motionless in the late
heat, their shadows in jet black twined and laced upon the white
road. Far ahead of her she could see the land undulating in easy
green bosoms against the radiant west; the sun was in her face as she
walked. She had no fear that Smith had wandere