Grizel garbed in wiles!  Alack the day!  She was shielding the man, and Gemmell could have driven her away roughly to get at him.  But she was also standing over her own pride, lest anyone should see that it had fallen; and do you think that David would have made her budge an inch?

Of course she saw that he had something on his mind.  She knew those puckered eyes so well, and had so often smoothed them for him.

“What is it, David?” she asked sympathetically.  “I see you have come as a patient to-night.”

“As one of those patients,” he rejoined, “who feel better at mere sight of the doctor.”

“Fear of the prescription?” said she.

“Not if you prescribe yourself, Grizel.”

“David!” she cried.  He had been paying compliments!

“I mean it.”

“So I can see by your face.  Oh, David, how stern you look!”

“Dr. McQueen and I,” he retorted, “used to hold private meetings after you had gone to bed, at which we agreed that you should no longer be allowed to make fun of us.  They came to nothing.  Do you know why?”

“Because I continued to do it?”

“No; but because we missed it so much if you stopped.”

“You are nice to-night, David,” she said, dropping him a courtesy.

“We liked all your bullying ways,” he went on.  “We were children in your masterful hands.”

“I was a tyrant, David,” she said, looking properly ashamed.  “I wonder you did not marry, just to get rid of me.”

“Have you ever seriously wondered why I don’t marry?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, David,” she exclaimed, “what else do you think your patients and I talk of when I am trying to nurse them?  It has agitated the town ever since you first walked up the Marrywellbrae, and we can’t get on with our work for thinking of it.”

“Seriously, Grizel?”

She became grave at once.  “If you could find the right woman,” she said wistfully.

“I have found her,” he answered; and then she pressed her hands together, too excited to speak.

“If she would only care a little for me,” he said.

Grizel rocked her arms.  “I am sure she does,” she cried.  “David, I am so glad!”

He saw what her mistake was, but pretended not to know that she had made one.  “Are you really glad that I love you, Grizel?” he asked.

It seemed to daze her for a moment.  “Not me, David,” she said softly, as if correcting him.  “You don’t mean that it is me?” she said coaxingly.  “David,” she cried, “say it is not me!”

He drooped his head, but not before he had seen all the brightness die out of her face.  “Is it so painful to you even to hear me say it?” he asked gravely.

Her joy had been selfish as her sorrow was.  For nigh a minute she had been thinking of herself alone, it meant so much to her; but now she jumped up and took his hand in hers.

“Poor David!” she said, making much of his hand as if she had hurt it.  But David Gemmell’s was too simple a face to oppose to her pitying eyes, and presently she let his hand slip from her and stood regarding him curiously.  He had to look another way, and then she even smiled, a little forlornly.