er feverish, precocious brain, Rhoda Vivian could not fail to see. It
was Dr. Cautley's business to look after Miss Quincey in her illness, and
it was Rhoda's to keep an eye on her in her recovery, and instantly
report the slightest threatening of a break-down. Miss Quincey's somewhat
eccentric behaviour filled her with misgivings; and in order to
investigate her case at leisure, she chose the first afternoon when Miss
Cursiter was not at home to ask the little arithmetic teacher to lunch.

After Rhoda's lunch, soothed with her sympathy and hidden, not to say
extinguished, in an enormous chair, Miss Quincey was easily worked into
the right mood for confidences; indeed she was in that state of mind when
they rush out of their own accord in the utter exhaustion of the will.

"Are you sure you are perfectly well?" so Rhoda began her inquiry.

"Perfectly, perfectly--in myself," said Miss Quincey, "I think,
perhaps--that is, sometimes I'm a little afraid that taking so much
arsenic may have disagreed with me. You know it is a deadly poison. But
I've left it off lately, so I ought to be better--unless perhaps I'm
feeling the want of it."

"You are not worrying about St. Sidwell's--about your work?"

"It's not that--not that. But to tell you the truth, I _am_ worried,
Rhoda. For some reason or other, my own fault, no doubt, I have lost a
friend. It's a hard thing," said Miss Quincey, "to lose a friend."

"Oh, I am sure--Do you mean Miss Cursiter?"

"No, I do not mean Miss Cursiter."

"Do you mean--me then? Not me?"

"You, dear child? Never. To be plain--this is in confidence, Rhoda--I am
speaking of Dr. Cautley."

"Dr. Cautley?"

"Yes. I do not know what I have done, or how I have offended him, but he
has not been near me for over two months."

"Perhaps he has been busy--in fact, I know he has."

"He has always been busy. It is not that. It is something--well, I hardly
care to speak of it, it has been so very painful. My dear"--Miss
Quincey's voice sank to an awful whisper--"he has cut me in the street."

"Oh, I know--he _will_ do it; he has done it to all his patients. He is
so dreadfully absent-minded."

If Miss Quincey had not been as guileless as the little old maid she was,
she would have recognised these indications of intimacy; as it was, she
said with superior conviction, "My dear, I _know_ Dr. Cautley. He has
never cut me before, and he would not do it now without a reason. There
has been some awful m