t, leaving her to lie awake for a long
time. She would have had all her world happy those days, and all her
world good. She didn't want anybody's bread and butter spilled on the
carpet.

So the days went on, and the web slowly wove itself into its complicated
pattern: Bassett speeding West, and David in his quiet room; Jim
and Leslie Ward seeking amusement, and finding it in the littered
dressing-room of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiter
brooding, and the little question being whispered behind hands,
figuratively, of course--the village was entirely well-bred; Gregory
calling round to see Bassett, and turning away with the information that
he had gone away for an indefinite time; and Maggie Donaldson, lying in
the cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shriven
her soul to the limit of her strength so that she might face her Maker.

Out of all of them it was Clare Rossiter who made the first conscious
move of the shuttle; Clare, affronted and not a little malicious, but
perhaps still dramatizing herself, this time as the friend who
feels forced to carry bad tidings. Behind even that, however, was
an unconscious desire to see Dick again, and this time so to impress
herself on him that never again could he pass her in the street
unnoticed.

On the day, then, that David first sat up in bed Clare went to the house
and took her place in the waiting-room. She was dressed with extreme
care, and she carried a parasol. With it, while she waited, she drilled
small nervous indentations in the old office carpet, and formulated her
line of action.

Nevertheless she found it hard to begin.

"I don't want to keep you, if you're busy," she said, avoiding his eyes.
"If you are in a hurry--"

"This is my business," he said patiently. And waited.

"I wonder if you are going to understand me, when I do begin?"

"You sound alarmingly ominous." He smiled at her, and she had a moment
of panic. "You don't look like a young lady with anything eating at her
damask cheek, or however it goes."

"Doctor Livingstone," she said suddenly, "people are saying something
about you that you ought to know."

He stared at her, amazed and incredulous.

"About me? What can they say? That's absurd."

"I felt you ought to know. Of course I don't believe it. Not for a
moment. But you know what this town is."

"I know it's a very good town," he said steadily. "However, let's have
it. I daresay it is not very seri