She turned from the spot with a wrung feeling of heart-break.  She wished—­how she wished—­that she had died!

In that moment she realized that she was no longer alone.  A man’s figure, thick-set and lounging, was sauntering towards her along the sand.  He seemed to move with extreme leisureliness, yet his approach was but a matter of seconds.  His hands were in his pockets, his hat rammed down over his eyes.

There seemed to her to be something vaguely familiar about him, though wherein it lay she could not have told.  She stood and awaited him with the certainty that he was coming with the express purpose of joining her.  She knew him; she was sure she knew him, though who he was she had not the faintest idea.

He reached her, lifted his cap, and the sun glinted on a head of fiery red hair.  “I thought I was not mistaken, Lady Evesham,” he said.

She recognized him with an odd leap of the pulses, and in a moment held out her hand.  “Dr. Wyndham!” she said.  “How amazing!”

“Why amazing?” said Wyndham.  He held her hand for a second while his green eyes scanned her face.  When he dropped it she felt that he had made a full and exhaustive inspection, and she was strangely disconcerted, as if in some fashion he had gained an unfair advantage over her.

“Amazing that you should be here,” she explained, with a flush of embarrassment.

“Oh, not in the least, I assure you,” he said.  “I am staying at Brethaven for a couple of days with my wife’s people.  It’s only ten miles away, you know.  And I bicycled over here on the chance of seeing you.”

“But how did you know I was here?” she asked.

“From your husband.  I told him I was coming in this direction, and he suggested that I should come over and look you up.”  Very casually he made reply, and he could not have been aware of the flood of colour his words sent to her face, for he continued in the same cool fashion as he strolled by her side.  “I was afraid you might consider it an unpardonable liberty, but he assured me you wouldn’t.  So—­” the green eyes smiled upon her imperturbably—­“as I am naturally interested in your welfare, I took my courage in both hands and, at the risk of being considered unprofessional,—­I came.”

It was unexpected, but it was disarming.  Avery found herself smiling in answer.

“I am very pleased to see you,” she said.  “But your coming just at this time is rather amazing all the same, for I was thinking of you, wishing I could see you, only a few minutes ago.”

“What can I do for you?” said Maxwell Wyndham.

She hesitated a little before the direct question; then as simply as he had asked she answered, laying the matter before him without reservation.

He listened in his shrewd, comprehending way, asking one or two questions, but making no comments.

“There need be no difficulty about it,” he said, when she ended.  “You say the child is tractable.  Keep her in bed to-morrow, and say a medical friend of yours is coming over to see if he can do anything for her cough!  Then if you’ll ask me to lunch—­I’ll do the rest.”