One night, after Alma and my husband had gone to a reception in Grosvenor Square, I had a sudden attack of heart-strain and had to be put to bed, whereupon Price, who had realised that I was really ill, told Hobson, my husband’s valet, to go after his master and bring him back immediately.

“It’ll be all as one, but I’ll go if you like,” said Hobson.

In half an hour he came back with my husband’s answer.  “Send for a doctor.”

This put Price into a fever of mingled anger and perplexity, and not knowing what else to do she telegraphed to Martin on his ship, telling him that I was ill and asking what doctor she ought to call in to see me.

Inside an hour a reply came not from Tilbury but from Portsmouth saying: 

“Call Doctor ——­ of Brook Street.  Am coming up at once.”

All this I heard for the first time when Price, with another triumphant look, came into my bedroom flourishing Martin’s telegram as something she had reason to be proud of.

“You don’t mean to say that you telegraphed to Mr. Conrad?” I said.

“Why not?” said Price.  “When a lady is ill and her husband pays no attention to her, and there’s somebody else not far off who would give his two eyes to save her a pain in her little finger, what is a woman to do?”

I told her what she was not to do.  She was not to call the doctor under any circumstances, and when Martin came she was to make it plain to him that she had acted on her own responsibility.

Towards midnight he arrived, and Price brought him into my room in a long ulster covered with dust.  I blushed and trembled at sight of him, for his face betrayed the strain and anxiety he had gone through on my account, and when he smiled at seeing that I was not as ill as he had thought, I was ashamed to the bottom of my heart.

“You’ll be sorry you’ve made such a long journey now that you see there’s so little amiss with me,” I said.

“Sorry?” he said.  “By the holy saints, I would take a longer one every night of my life to see you looking so well at the end of it.”

His blue eyes were shining like the sun from behind a cloud, and the cruellest looks could not have hurt me more.

I tried to keep my face from expressing the emotion I desired to conceal, and asked if he had caught a train easily from Portsmouth, seeing he had arrived so early.

“No.  Oh no, there was no train up until eleven o’clock,” he said.

“Then how did you get here so soon?” I asked, and though he would not tell me at first I got it out of him at last—­he had hired a motor-car and travelled the ninety miles to London in two hours and a half.

That crushed me.  I could not speak.  I thought I should have choked.  Lying there with Martin at arm’s length of me, I was afraid of myself, and did not know what I might do next.  But at last, with a great effort to control myself, I took his hand and kissed it, and then turned my face to the wall.