“What neighbours?”

“Myself and my mother.  As for me, it is very natural; but my mother!  I never saw her ridiculed before.  Through me she could not in ten years have done what in a moment she has done through my mother.”

Never before had I seen so much fire and so little sunshine in Dr. John’s blue eyes.

“My mother shall not be ridiculed with my consent, or without my scorn,” he added.  “Mother,” said he to her later, “You are better to me than ten wives.”  And when we were out in the keen night air, he said to himself:  “Thank you, Miss Fanshawe.  I am glad you laughed at my mother.  That sneer did me a world of good.”

V.—­Reunion Completed

One evening in December Dr. Bretton called to take me to the theatre in place of his mother, who had been prevented by an arrival.  In the course of the performance a cry of “Fire!” rang out, and a panic ensued.  Graham remained quite cool until he saw a young girl struck from her protector’s arms and hurled under the feet of the crowd.  Then he rushed forward, thrust back the throng with the assistance of the gentleman—­a powerful man, though grey-haired—­and bore the girl into the fresh night, I following him closely.

“She is very light,” he said; “like a child.”

“I am not a child!  I am a person of seventeen!” responded his burden, demurely.

Her father’s carriage drove up, and Graham, having introduced himself as an English doctor, we drove to the hotel where father and daughter were staying in handsome apartments.  The injuries were not dangerous, and the father, after earnestly expressing his obligations to Graham, asked him to call the next day.

When next I visited the Bretton’s chateau I found an intruder in the room I had occupied during my illness.

“Miss de Bassompierre, I pronounced, recognising the rescued lady, whose name I had heard on the night of the accident.

“No,” was the reply.  “Not Miss de Bassompierre to you.”  Then, as I seemed at fault, she added:  “You have forgotten, then, that I have sat on your knee, been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow.  I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre.”

I often visited Mary de Bassompierre with pleasure.  That young lady had different moods for different people.  With her father she was even now a child.  With me she was serious and womanly.  With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant.  With Graham she was shy—­very shy.  At moments she tried to be cold, and, on occasion, she endeavoured to shun him.  Even her father noticed this demeanour in her, and asked her what her old friend had done.

“Nothing,” she replied; “but we are grown strange to each other.”

I became apprised of the return of M. de Bassompierre and Paulina, after a few weeks’ absence in Paris, by seeing them riding before me in a quiet boulevard with Dr. Bretton.  How animated was Graham’s face!  How true, yet how retiring the joy it expressed!  They parted.  He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand.