sound. Once outside, she suddenly dropped her bantering
manner and said quite earnestly:

"How kind it was of you to come and see him to-night! You have done him
a world of good, and I am most grateful. Good night!"

She shook hands with me really cordially, and I took my way down the
creaking stairs in a whirl of happiness that I was quite at a loss to
account for.

CHAPTER V

THE WATERCRESS-BED

Barnard's practice, like most others, was subject to those fluctuations
that fill the struggling practitioner alternately with hope and despair.
The work came in paroxysms with intervals of almost complete stagnation.
One of these intermissions occurred on the day after my visit to
Nevill's Court, with the result that by half-past eleven I found myself
wondering what I should do with the remainder of the day. The better to
consider this weighty problem, I strolled down to the Embankment, and,
leaning on the parapet, contemplated the view across the river; the grey
stone bridge with its perspective of arches, the picturesque pile of the
shot-towers, and beyond, the shadowy shapes of the Abbey and St.
Stephen's.

It was a pleasant scene, restful and quiet, with a touch of life and a
hint of sober romance, when a barge swept down through the middle arch
of the bridge with a lugsail hoisted to a jury mast and a white-aproned
woman at the tiller. Dreamily I watched the craft creep by upon the
moving tide, noted the low freeboard, almost awash, the careful
helmswoman, and the dog on the forecastle yapping at the distant
shore--and thought of Ruth Bellingham.

What was there about this strange girl that had made so deep an
impression on me? That was the question that I propounded to myself, and
not for the first time. Of the fact itself there was no doubt. But what
was the explanation? Was it her unusual surroundings? Her occupation and
rather recondite learning? Her striking personality and exceptional good
looks? Or her connection with the dramatic mystery of her lost uncle?

I concluded that it was all of these. Everything connected with her was
unusual and arresting; but over and above these circumstances there was
a certain sympathy and personal affinity of which I was strongly
conscious and of which I dimly hoped that she, perhaps, was a little
conscious, too. At any rate, I was deeply interested in her; of that
there was no doubt whatever. Short as our acquaintance had been, she
held a place in my thoughts t