So surprised was he that he said he would not come again unless he was sent for.

And then in three days Alice slid back.

But they were not to worry about her, she said.  There was nothing the matter with her except that she was tired.  She was so tired that she lay all Tuesday on the drawing-room sofa and on Wednesday morning she was too tired to get up and dress.

And on Wednesday afternoon Dr. Rowcliffe found a note waiting at the blacksmith’s cottage in Garth village, where he had a room with a brown gauze blind in the window and the legend in gilt letters: 

  SURGERY

  Dr. S. Rowcliffe, M.D., F.R.C.S.

  Hours of Attendance
  Wednesday, 2.30-4.30.

The note ran: 

“DEAR DR. ROWCLIFFE:  Can you come and see me this afternoon?  I think I’m rather worse.  But I don’t want to frighten my people—­so perhaps, if you just looked in about teatime, as if you’d called?

  “Yours truly,

  “ALICE CARTARET.”

Essy Gale had left the note that morning.

Rowcliffe looked at it dubiously.  He was honest and he had the large views of a man used to a large practice.  His patients couldn’t complain that he lengthened his bills by paying unnecessary visits.  If he wanted to add to his income in that way, he wasn’t going to begin with a poor parson’s hysterical daughter.  But as the Vicar of Garth had called on him and left his card on Monday, there was no reason why he shouldn’t look in on Wednesday about teatime.  Especially as he knew that the Vicar was in the habit of visiting Upthorne and the outlying portions of his parish on Wednesday afternoons.

* * * * *

All day Alice lay in her little bed like a happy child and waited.  Propped on her pillows, with her slender arms stretched out before her on the counterpane, she waited.

Her sullenness was gone.  She had nothing but sweetness for Mary and for Essy.  Even to her father she was sweet.  She could afford it.  Her instinct was now sure.  From time to time a smile flickered on her small face like a light almost of triumph.

* * * * *

The Vicar and Miss Cartaret were out when Rowcliffe called at the Vicarage, but Miss Gwendolen was in if he would like to see her.

He waited in the crowded shabby gray and amber drawing-room with the Erard in the corner, and it was there that she came to him.

He said he had only called to ask after her sister, as he had heard in the village that she was not so well.

“I’m afraid she isn’t.”

“May I see her?  I don’t mean professionally—­just for a talk.”

The formula came easily.  He had used it hundreds of times in the houses of parsons and of clerks and of little shopkeepers, to whom bills were nightmares.

She took him upstairs.

On the landing she turned to him.