umour, for he retired from the bedside to
pace the drugget in distinct annoyance.

"Damned officious of him," he grumbled. "You were not his patient."

"I am _now_, so it's all right."

"You shouldn't have forgotten your dignity."

"I know it, but that's the way with me. I never remember that I have
any!"

"You are a married woman and no longer a child," he continued
reproachfully.

"I shall always be a silly fool, I'm afraid," she sighed. "However, he's
only the doctor, and a doctor is something between an angel and an
automaton."

"The devil he is!" Meredith growled, kicking a hassock to the other end
of the tent.

"Come here, you big goose," she said wearily, stretching her limbs;
"kiss me this instant, and go back to the malefactors. I want to sleep
off this attack and get well quickly."

Meredith could not bear to see her looking ill and wanted no second
bidding to demonstrate his love for her. After kissing her most
tenderly, he tucked her in comfortably, and, much against his
inclination, left her to the doctor's ministrations.

CHAPTER IV

A POINT OF VIEW

Dalton filled the ice-bag he had brought with him and settled down to
nursing with the skill of a woman; and no hands could have been gentler.
Occasionally the worried husband would pay the tent a flying visit and
return to listen to a pleader's lengthy oration with all the attention
he could muster under the troublous circumstances. Visions of his wife's
flushed face lying still on the pillow with closed eyes would haunt him
with agonising fidelity to detail--especially in relation to the
attentive doctor hovering near, adjusting the bag or removing it to be
refilled, and administering the necessary doses of medicine. He took
special notice of Dalton in his new character of nurse, and had no fault
to find with his manner. He was as silent as the Sphinx and as
professional as a nursing sister, and though Meredith thought it
objectionable that his wife should always have to be treated in illness
by a male physician--there being no lady doctor within hundreds of
miles--he was obliged to take comfort in the fact that his beloved could
not be in better hands.

Elsewhere, the ayah crooned lullabies to the baby who no longer needed
strict watching. She fed it from the bottle and wondered,
philosophically, who would be the next to be taken ill; for experience
told her that it was a mild form of epidemic chill, familiar to all at
the changin