Chapter I. DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST

"Just in time, wasn't it?"asked Mary Arkroyd.

"Two days before the—the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?"

"Only once—in Collingham Gardens. He had an exeat, and dashed in one Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don't you remember?"

"Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I'd gone into colors. Oh, of course I've gone back into mourning now! And everything was ready—settlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth. And then it all came out!"

"How?"

"We ll, Eustace—Captain Cranster, I mean. Oh, I think he really must have had shell-shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt it! He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, and—and the bank wouldn't pay the check. Other checks turned up, too, and in the end the police went through his papers, and found letters from—well, from her, you know. From Bogota. South America, isn't it? He'd lived there ten years, you know, growing something—beans, or coffee, or coffee-beans, or something—I don't know what. He tried to say the marriage wasn't binding, but the Colonel—wasn't it providential that the Colonel was home on leave? Mamma could never have grappled with it! The Colonel was sure it was, and so were the lawyers."

"What happened then?"

"The great thing was to keep it quiet. Now, wasn't it? And there was the shell-shock—or so Eustace—Captain Cranster, I mean—said, anyhow. So, on the Colonel's advice, Mamma squared the check business and—and they gave him twenty-four hours to clear out. Papa—I call the Colonel Papa, you know, though he's really my stepfather—used a little influence, I think. Anyhow it was managed. I never saw him again, Mary."

"Poor dear! Was it very bad?"

"Yes! But—suppose we had been married! Mary, where should I have been?"

Mary Arkroyd left that problem alone."We re you very fond of him?"she asked.

"Awfully!"Cynthia turned up to her friend pretty blue eyes suffused in tears."It was the end of the world to me. That there could be such men! I went to bed. Mamma could do nothing with me. Oh, well, she wrote to you about all that."

"She told me you were in a pretty bad way."

"I was just desperate! Then one day—in bed—the thought of you came. It seemed an Absolute inspiration. I remembered the card you sent on my last birthday—you've never forgotten my birthdays, though it's years since we met—with your new address here—and your'Doctor,'and all the letters after your name! I thought it rather funny."A faint smile, the first since Miss Walford's arrival at Inkston, probably the first since Captain Eustace Cranster's shell-shock had wrought catastrophe—appeared on her lips."How I waited for your answer! You don't mind having me, do you, dear? Mamma insisted on suggesting the P.G. arrangement. I was afraid you'd shy at it."

"Not a bit! I should have liked to have you anyhow, but I can make you much more comfortable with the P.G. money. And your maid too—she looks as if she was accustomed to the best! By the way, need she be quite so tearful? She's more tearful than you are yourself."

"Jeanne's very, very fond of me,"Cynthia murmured reproachfully.

"Oh, well get her out of that,"said Mary briskly."The tears, I mean, not the fondness. I'm very fond of you myself. Six years ago you were a charming kitten, and I used to enjoy being your'visiting governess'—to say nothing of finding the guineas very handy while I was waiting to qualify. You're rather like a kitten still, one of those blue-eyed ones—Siamese, aren't they?—with close fur and a wondering look. But you mustn't mew down here, and you must have lots of milk and cream. Even if rations go on, I can certify all the extras for you. That's the good of being a doctor!"She laughed cheerfully as she took a cigarette from the mantelpiece and lit it.

Cynthia, on the other hand, began to sob prettily and not in a noisy fashion, yet evidently heading towards a bout of grief. Moreover, no sooner had the first sound of lamentation escaped from her lips, than the door was opened smartly and a buxom girl, in lady's maid uniform, rushed in, darted across the room, and knelt by Cynthia, sobbing also and exclaiming,"Oh, my poor Mees Cynthia!"

Mary smiled in a humorous contempt.

"Stop this!"she commanded rather brusquely."You've not been deceived too, have you, Jeanne?"

"Me, madame? No. My poor Mees—"

"Leave your poor Mees to me."She took a paper bag from the mantelpiece."Go and eat chocolates."

Fixed with a firm and decidedly professional glance, Jeanne stopped sobbing and rose slowly to her feet.

"Don't listen outside the door. You must have been listening. Wait till you're rung for. Miss Cynthia will be all right with me. We're going for a walk. Take her upstairs and put her hat on her, and a thick coat; it's cold and going to rain, I think."

"A walk, Mary?"Cynthia's sobs stopped, to make way for this protest. The description of the weather did not sound attractive.

"Yes, yes. Now off with both of you! Here, take the chocolates, Jeanne, and try to remember that it might have been worse."

Jeanne's brown eyes were eloquent of reproach.

"Captain Cranster might have been found out too late—after the wedding,"Mary explained with a smile."Try to look at it like that. Five minutes to get ready, Cynthia!"She was ready for the weather herself, in the stout coat and skirt and weather-proof hat in which she had driven the two-seater on her round that morning.

The disconsolate pair drifted ruefully from the room, though Jeanne did recollect to take the chocolates. Doctor Mary stood looking down at the fire, her lips still shaped in that firm, wise, and philosophical smile with which doctors and nurses—and indeed, sometimes, anybody who happens to be feeling pretty well himself—console, or exasperate, suffering humanity."A very good thing the poor silly child did come to me!"That was the form her thoughts took. For although Dr. Mary Arkroyd was, and knew herself to be, no dazzling genius at her profession—in moments of candor she would speak of having"scraped through"her qualifying examinations—she had a high opinion of her own common sense and her power of guiding weaker mortals.

For all that Jeanne's cheek bulged with a chocolate, there was open resentment on her full, pouting lips, and a hint of the same feeling in Cynthia's still liquid eyes, when mistress and maid came downstairs again. Without heeding these signs, Mary drew on her gauntlets, took her walking-stick, and flung the hall door open. A rush of cold wind filled the little hall. Jeanne shivered ostentatiously; Cynthia sighed and muffled herself deeper in her fur collar."A good walking day!"said Mary decisively.

Up to now, Inkston had not impressed Cynthia Walford very favorably. It was indeed a mixed kind of a place. Like many villages which lie near to London and have been made, by modern developments, more accessible than once they were, it showed chronological strata in its buildings. Down by the station all was new, red, suburban. Mounting the tarred road, the wayfarer bore slightly to the right along the original village street; bating the aggressive"fronts"of one or two commercial innovators, this was old, calm, serene, gray in tone and restful, ornamented by three or four good class Georgian houses, one quite fine, with well wrought iron gates (this was Dr. Irechester's); turning to the right again, but more sharply, the wayfarer found himself once more in villadom, but a villadom more ornate, more costly, with gardens to be measured in acres—or nearly. This was Hinton Avenue (Hinton because it was the maiden name of the builder's wife; Avenue because avenue is genteel). Here Mary dwelt, but by good luck her predecessor, Dr. Christian Evans, had seized upon a surviving old cottage at the end of the avenue, and, indeed, of Inkston village itself. Beyond it stretched meadows, while the road, turning again, ran across an open heath, and pursued its way to Sprotsfield, four miles distant, a place of greater size where all amenities could be found.

It was along this road that the friends now walked, Mary setting a brisk pace."When once you've turned your back on the Avenue, it's heaps better,"she said."Might be real country, looking this way, mightn't it? Except the Naylors'place—Oh, and Tower Cottage—there are no houses between this and Sprotsfield."

The wind blew shrewdly, with an occasional spatter of rain; the withered bracken lay like a vast carpet of dull copper-color under the cloudy sky; scattered fir-trees made fantastic shapes in the early gloom of a December day. A somber scene, yet wanting only sunshine to make it flash in a richness of color; even to-day its quiet and spaciousness, its melancholy and monotony, seemed to bid a sympathetic and soothing welcome to aching and fretted hearts.

"It really is rather nice out here,"Cynthia admitted.

"I come almost every afternoon. Oh, I've plenty of time! My round in the morning generally sees me through—except for emergencies, births and deaths, and so on. You see, my predecessor, poor Christian Evans, never had more than the leavings, and that's all I've got. I believe the real doctor, the old-established one, Dr. Irechester, was angry at first with Dr. Evans for coming; he didn't want a rival. But Christian was such a meek, mild, simple little We lshman, not the least pushing or ambitious; and very soon Dr. Irechester, who's quite well off, was glad to leave him the dirty work, I mean (she explained, smiling) the cottages, and the panel work, National Insurance, you know, and so on. We ll, as you know, I came down as locum for Christian, he was a fellow-student of mine, and when the dear little man was killed in France, Dr. Irechester himself suggested that I should stay on. He was rather nice. He said,'We all started to laugh at you, at first, but we don't laugh now, anyhow, only my wife does! So, if you stay on, I don't doubt we shall work very well together, my dear colleague,'Wasn't that rather nice of him, Cynthia?"

"Yes, dear,"said Cynthia, in a voice that sounded a good many miles away.

Mary laughed."I'm bound to be interested in you, but I suppose you're not bound to be interested in me,"she observed resignedly."All the same, I made a sensation at Inkston just at first. And they were even more astonished when it turned out that I could dance and play lawn tennis."

"That's a funny little place,"said Cynthia, pointing to the left side of the road.

"Tower Cottage, that's called."

"But what a funny place!"Cynthia insisted."A round tower, like a Martello tower, only smaller, of course; and what looks just like an ordinary cottage or small farm-house joined on to it. What could the tower have been for?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Origin lost in the mists of antiquity! An old gentleman named Saffron lives there now."

"A patient of yours, Mary?"

"Oh, no! He's well off, rich, I believe. So he belongs to Dr. Irechester. But I often meet him along the road. Lately there's always been a younger man with him, a companion, or secretary, or something of that sort, I hear he is."

"The re are two men coming along the road now."

"Yes, that's them, the old man, and his friend. He's rather striking to look at."

"Which of them?"

"The old man, of course. I haven't looked at the secretary. Cynthia, I believe you're beginning to feel a little better!"

"Oh, no, I'm not! I'm afraid I'm not, really!"But there had been a cheerfully roguish little smile on her face. It vanished very promptly when observed.

The two men approached them, on their way, no doubt, to Tower Cottage. The old man was not above middle height, indeed, scarcely reached it; but he made the most of his inches carrying himself very upright, with an Air of high dignity. Close-cut white hair showed under an old-fashioned peaked cap; he wore a plaid shawl swathed round him, his left arm being enveloped in its folds; his right rested in the arm of his companion, who was taller than he, lean and loose-built, clad in an Almost white (and very unseasonable looking) suit of some homespun material. He wore no covering on his head, a thick crop of curly hair (of a color indistinguishable in the dim light) presumably affording such protection as he needed. His face was turned down towards the old man, who was looking up at him and apparently talking to him, though in so low a tone that no sound reached Mary and Cynthia as they passed by. Neither man gave any sign of noticing their presence.

"Mr. Saffron, you said? Rather a queer name, but he looks a nice old man; patriarchal, you know. What's the name of the other one?"

"I did hear; somebody mentioned him at the Naylors'—somebody who had heard something about him in France. What was the name? It was something queer too, I think."

"They've got queer names, and they live in a queer house!"Cynthia actually gave a little laugh."But are you going to walk all night, Mary dear?"

"Oh, poor thing! I forgot you! You're tired? We'll turn back."

They retraced their steps, again passing Tower Cottage, into which its occupants must have gone, for they were no longer to be seen.

"That name's on the tip of my tongue,"said Mary in amused vexation."I shall get it in a moment!"

Cynthia had relapsed into gloom."It doesn't matter in the least,"she murmured.

"It's Beaumaroy!"said Mary in triumph.

"I don't wonder you couldn't remember that!"