shielded from the knowledge of his wound?"

The doctor screened his face with his hand,

"I see," he said.

The clock struck six.

"But that was not the only reason I left town," continued Lady Ingleby,
with evident effort. Then she flung out both hands towards him. "Oh,
doctor! I wonder if I might tell you a thing which has been a burden on
my heart and life for years!"

There followed a tense moment of silence; but the doctor was used to such
moments, and could usually determine during the silence, whether the
confidence should be allowed or avoided. He turned and looked steadily at
the lovely wistful face.

It was the face of an exceedingly beautiful woman, nearing thirty. But
the lovely eyes still held the clear candour of the eyes of a little
child, the sweet lips quivered with quickly felt emotion, the low brow
showed no trace of shame or sin. The doctor knew he was in the presence
of one of the most popular hostesses, one of the most admired women, in
the kingdom. Yet his keen professional insight revealed to him an
arrested development; possibilities unfulfilled; a problem of inadequacy
and consequent disappointment, to which he had not the key. But those
outstretched hands eagerly held it towards him. Could he bring help, if
he accepted a knowledge of the solution; or--did help come too late?

"Dear Lady Ingleby," he said, quietly; "tell me anything you like; that
is to say, anything which you feel assured Lord Ingleby would allow
discussed with a third person."

Myra leaned back among the cushions and laughed--a gay little laugh, half
of amusement, half of relief.

"Oh, Michael would not mind!" she said. "Anything Michael would mind, I
have always told straight to himself; and they were silly little things;
such as foolish people trying to make love to me; or a foreign prince,
with moustaches like the German Emperor's, offering to shoot Michael, if
I would promise to marry him when his period of consequent imprisonment
was over. I cut the idiots who had presumed to make love to me, ever
after; and assured the foreign prince, I should undoubtedly kill him
myself, if he hurt a hair of Michael's head! No, dear doctor. My life is
clear of all that sort of complication. My trouble is a harder one,
involving one's whole life-problem. And that problem is incompetence and
inadequacy--not towards the world, I should not care a rap for that; but
towards the one to whom I owe most: towards Michael,--my husband