“And I will take your place here with Mr. Ferriss; somebody will be with him at every moment, and I shall only wire you,” continued the doctor, “in case of urgent necessity.  I want you to have all the rest you can, and stay away as long as possible.  I shan’t annoy you with telegrams unless I must.  You’ll understand that no news is good news.”

* * * * *

On that particular morning Lloyd sat in her room in the old farmhouse that she always elected to call her home as often as she visited Bannister.  It was some quarter of a mile outside the little village, and on the road that connected it with the railway at Fourth Lake, some six miles over the hills to the east.  It was yet early in the morning, and Lloyd was writing letters that she would post at Fourth Lake later in the forenoon.  She intended driving over to the lake.  Two days before, Lewis had arrived with Rox, the ponies and the phaeton.  Lloyd’s dog-cart, a very gorgeous, high-wheeled affair, was always kept at Bannister.

The room in which she now sat was delightful.  Everything was white, from the curtains of the bed to the chintz hangings on the walls.  A rug of white fur was on the floor.  The panellings and wooden shutters of the windows were painted white.  The fireplace was set in glossy-white tiles, and its opening covered with a screen of white feathers.  The windows were flung wide, and a great flood of white sunlight came pouring into the room.  Lloyd herself was dressed in white, from the clean, crisp scarf tied about her neck to the tip of her canvas tennis shoes.  And in all this array of white only the dull-red flame of her high-piled hair—­in the sunshine glowing like burnished copper—­set a vivid note of colour, the little strands and locks about her neck and ears coruscating as the breeze from the open windows stirred them.

The morning was veritably royal—­still, cool, and odorous of woods and cattle and growing grass.  A great sense of gayety, of exhilaration, was in the air.  Lloyd was all in tune with it.  While she wrote her left elbow rested on the table, and in her left hand she held a huge, green apple, unripe, sour, delicious beyond words, and into which she bit from time to time with the silent enjoyment of a school-girl.

Her letter was to Hattie’s father, Mr. Campbell, and she wrote to ask if the little girl might not spend a week with her at Bannister.  When the letter was finished and addressed she thrust it into her belt, and, putting on her hat, ran downstairs.  Lewis had brought the dog-cart to the gate, and stood waiting in the road by Rox’s head.  But as Lloyd went down the brick-paved walk of the front yard Mrs. Applegate, who owned the farmhouse, and who was at once Lloyd’s tenant, landlady, housekeeper, and cook, appeared on the porch of the house, the head of a fish in her hand, and Charley-Joe, the yellow tomcat, at her heels, eyeing her with painful intentness.