ly can write? I might make a career for myself."

"Rot!" said Dan.

"Sir George differs from you," Beth rejoined.

"I say that's all rot. What does he know about it? I tell you you're a
silly fool, and your head wouldn't contain a book. I ought to know!"

"Doctors differ again, then, it seems," Beth said. "But in this case
the patient is going to decide for herself. What is the use of opinion
in such matters? One must experiment. I'm going to write, and if at
first I don't succeed--I shall persevere."

"Oh, of course!" Dan sneered. "You'll take anybody's advice but your
husband's. However, go your own way, as I know you will. Only, I warn
you, you'll regret it."

Beth was dipping into one of the books, and took no notice of this.
Dan's ill-humour augmented.

"Did you know the fellow was coming to-day?" he asked.

"No--if by fellow you mean Sir George Galbraith," she answered
casually, still intent on the book.

"You know well enough who I mean, and that's just a nag," he retorted.
"And it looks uncommonly as if you did expect him, and had set all
that rubbish of writing out to make a display."

Beth bit the end of her pencil, and looked at Dan contemptuously.

"I dare say he'd like to get hold of you to make a tool of you," he
pursued. "He's in with Lord Dawne and the whole of that advanced
woman's party at Morne, who are always interfering with everything."

"How?" Beth asked.

"By poking their noses into things that don't concern them," he
asseverated, "things they wouldn't know anything about if they weren't
damned nasty-minded. There's that fanatical Lady Fulda Guthrie, and
Mrs. Orton Beg, and Mrs. Kilroy, besides Madam Ideala--they're all
busybodies, and if they succeed in what they're at just now, by Jove,
they'll ruin me! I'll have my revenge, though, if they do! I'll attack
your distinguished friend. He has established himself as a
humanitarian, and travels on that reputation; but he has an hospital
of his own, where I have no doubt some pretty games are played in the
way of experiments which the public don't suspect. _I_ know the kind
of thing! Patients mustn't ask questions! The good doctor will do his
best for them--trust him! He'll try nothing that he doesn't know to
be for their good; and when they're under chloroform he'll take no
unfair advantage in the way of cutting a little more for his own
private information than they've consented to. Oh, I know! Galbraith
seems to be by way of slight