“Do you take any interest in Egyptian history?  We are as mad as hatters on the subject.  It seems to be a family complaint.”

“I don’t know much about it,” I answered.  “Medical studies are rather engrossing and don’t leave much time for general reading.”

“Naturally,” she said.  “You can’t specialise in everything.  But if you would care to see how the business of a literary jackal is conducted, I will show you my notes.”

I accepted the offer eagerly (not, I fear, from pure enthusiasm for the subject), and she brought forth from the bag four blue-covered, quarto note-books, each dealing with one of the four dynasties from the fourteenth to the seventeenth.  As I glanced through the neat and orderly extracts with which they were filled we discussed the intricacies of the peculiarly difficult and confused period that they covered, gradually lowering our voices as Mr. Bellingham’s eyes closed and his head fell against the back of his chair.  We had just reached the critical reign of Apepa II when a resounding snore broke in upon the studious quiet of the room and sent us both into a fit of silent laughter.

“Your conversation has done its work,” she whispered as I stealthily picked up my hat, and together we stole on tiptoe to the door, which she opened without a sound.  Once outside, she suddenly dropped her bantering manner and said quite earnestly: 

“How kind it was of you to come and see him to-night!  You have done him a world of good, and I am most grateful.  Good night!”

She shook hands with me really cordially, and I took my way down the creaking stairs in a whirl of happiness that I was quite at a loss to account for.

CHAPTER V

THE WATERCRESS-BED

Barnard’s practice, like most others, was subject to those fluctuations that fill the struggling practitioner alternately with hope and despair.  The work came in paroxysms with intervals of almost complete stagnation.  One of these intermissions occurred on the day after my visit to Nevill’s Court, with the result that by half-past eleven I found myself wondering what I should do with the remainder of the day.  The better to consider this weighty problem, I strolled down to the Embankment, and, leaning on the parapet, contemplated the view across the river; the grey stone bridge with its perspective of arches, the picturesque pile of the shot-towers, and beyond, the shadowy shapes of the Abbey and St. Stephen’s.

It was a pleasant scene, restful and quiet, with a touch of life and a hint of sober romance, when a barge swept down through the middle arch of the bridge with a lugsail hoisted to a jury mast and a white-aproned woman at the tiller.  Dreamily I watched the craft creep by upon the moving tide, noted the low freeboard, almost awash, the careful helmswoman, and the dog on the forecastle yapping at the distant shore—­and thought of Ruth Bellingham.