“Yes, yes, my dear, I know,” said the doctor.

“You love her too, don’t you?” said Sarah.

He started.  “I—­I love Lady Mary!  What do you mean?” he said, almost violently.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that sort of love,” said Sarah, watching him keenly.  Then she laid her plump hand gently on his shabby sleeve.  “I wouldn’t have said it, if I’d thought—­”

“Thought what?” said the doctor, agitated.

“What I think now,” said Sarah.

He walked up and down in a silence she was too wise to break.  When he looked at her again, Sarah was leaning against the piano.  She had taken off the picture-hat, and was swinging it absently to and fro by the black ribbons which had but now been tied beneath her round, white chin.  She presented a charming picture—­and it is possible she knew it—­as she stood in that restful pose, with her long lashes pointed downwards towards her buckled shoes.

The doctor stopped in front of her.  “You are too quick for me, Sarah.  You always were, even as a little girl,” he said.  “You’ve surprised my—­my poor secret.  You can laugh at the old doctor now, if you like.”

“I don’t feel like laughing,” said Sarah, simply.  “And your secret is safe with me.  I’m honest; you know that.”

“Yes, my dear; I know that.  God bless you!” said the doctor.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Blundell,” said Sarah, softly.

The deep voice which came from the full, white chest, and which had once been so unmanageable, was one of Sarah’s surest weapons now.

When she sang, she counted her victims by the dozen; when she lowered it, as she lowered it now, to speak only to one man, every note went straight to his heart—­if he had an ear for music and a heart for love.

When Sarah said, in these dulcet tones, therefore, that she was sorry for her old friend, the tears gathered to the doctor’s kind, tired eyes.

“For me!” he said gratefully.  “Oh, you mustn’t be sorry for me.  She—­she could hardly be further out of my reach, you know, if she were—­an angel in heaven, instead of being what she is—­an angel on earth.  It is—­of her that I was thinking.”

“I know,” said Sarah; “but she has been looking so bright and hopeful, ever since we heard Peter was coming home—­until to-day—­when he has actually come; and that is what puzzles me.”

“To-day—­to-day!” said the doctor, as though to himself.  “Yes; it was to-day I saw her touch happiness timidly, and come face to face with disappointment.”

“You saw her?”

“Oh, when one loves,” he said bitterly, “one has intuitions which serve as well as eyes and ears.  You will know all about it one day, little Sarah.”

“Shall I?” said Sarah.  She turned her face away from the doctor.

“You’ve not been here very much lately,” he said, “but you’ve been here long enough to guess her secret, as you—­you’ve guessed mine.  Eh?  You needn’t pretend, for my sake, to misunderstand me.”