r Alcott
pushed towards him.

"Just overhead. It is our only spare room."

Buntingford nodded, and the two heads, the black and the grey, bent
towards each other, while Alcott gave his murmured report.

"You know we have no servant. My sister does everything, with my help,
and a village woman once or twice a week. Lydia came down this morning
about seven o'clock and opened the front door. To her astonishment she
found a woman leaning against the front pillar of our little porch. My
sister spoke to her, and then saw she must be exhausted or ill. She told
her to come in, and managed to get her into the dining-room where there
is a sofa. She said a few incoherent things after lying down and then
fainted. My sister called me, and I went for our old doctor. He came back
with me, said it was collapse, and heart weakness--perhaps after
influenza--and that we must on no account move her except on to a bed in
the dining-room till he had watched her a little. She was quite unable to
give any account of herself, and while we were watching her she seemed to
go into a heavy sleep. She only recovered consciousness about five
o'clock this evening. Meanwhile I had been obliged to go to a diocesan
meeting at Dansworth and I left my sister and Dr. Ramsay in charge of
her, suggesting that as there was evidently something unusual in the case
nothing should be said to anybody outside the house till I came back and
she was able to talk to us. I hurried back, and found the doctor giving
injections of strychnine and brandy which seemed to be reviving her.
While we were all standing round her, she said quite clearly--'I want to
see Philip Buntingford.' Dr. Ramsay knelt down beside her, and asked her
to tell him, if she was strong enough, why she wanted to see you. She did
not open her eyes, but said again distinctly--'Because I am'--or was--I
am not quite sure which--'his wife.' And after a minute or two she said
twice over, very faintly--'Send for him--send for him.' So then I wrote
my note to you and sent it off. Since then the doctor and my sister have
succeeded in carrying her upstairs--and the doctor gives leave for you to
see her. He is coming back again presently. During her sleep, she talked
incoherently once or twice about a lake and a boat--and once she
said--'Oh, do stop that music!' and moved her head about as though it
hurt her. Since then I have heard some gossip from the village about a
strange lady who was seen in the park las