ough the young man's eyes. He evidently
resented the specialist's advice; indeed, his glance plainly revealed
that he regarded it as a piece of gratuitous impertinence. He answered
coldly:

"Many thanks, Sir Henry, but I think I shall be able to look after
myself."

"That is not an uncommon feature of your complaint," said the
specialist. An oracular shake of the head conveyed more than the words.

"What do you imagine my complaint, as you term it, to be?" asked the
young man curtly.

Colwyn wondered whether even a fashionable physician, used to the
freedom with which fashionable ladies discussed their ailments, would
have the courage to tell a stranger that he regarded him as an
epileptic. The matter was not put to the test--perhaps fortunately--for
at that moment there was a sharp tap at the door, which opened to admit
a chambermaid who seemed the last word in frills and smartness.

"If you please, Sir Henry," said the girl, with a sidelong glance at the
tall handsome young man by the mantelpiece, "Lady Durwood would be
obliged if you would go to her room at once."

It speaks well for Sir Henry Durwood that the physician was instantly
merged in the husband. "Tell Lady Durwood I will come at once," he said.
"You'll excuse me," he added, with a courtly bow to his patient.
"Perhaps--if you wish--you might care to see me later."

"Many thanks, Sir Henry, but there will be no need." He bowed gravely to
the specialist, but smiled cordially and held out his hand to Colwyn, as
the latter prepared to follow Sir Henry out of the room. "I hope to see
you later," he said.

But when Colwyn, after a day spent on the golf-links, went into the
dining-room for dinner that evening, the young man's place was vacant.
After the meal Colwyn went to the office to inquire if Mr. Ronald was
still unwell, and learnt, to his surprise, that he had departed from the
hotel an hour or so after his illness.

CHAPTER III

Lunch was over the following day, and the majority of the hotel guests
were assembled in the lounge, some sitting round a log fire which roared
and crackled in the old-fashioned fireplace, others wandering backwards
and forwards to the hotel entrance to cast a weather eye on the black
and threatening sky.

During the night there had been one of those violent changes in the
weather with which the denizens of the British Isles are not altogether
unfamiliar; a heavy storm had come shrieking down the North Sea, and