did. He was somewhat doubtful of the effect upon her when she came to

a clear understanding of the matter. On the whole, he decided it would be better if possible not to see her again. What he had done for her had been done out of pity, but it was not the pity that sometimes leads to warmer feeling. All that had died a natural death when she married Carew.

He attended the funeral with the rest. It would only have made comment if he had not. And Jim Barclay and most of the others were at pains to manifest their continued friendliness and confidence.

Whether the full facts had got out he could not tell, but, rightly or wrongly, imagined so, and for the second time in his life he found himself ill at ease among his neighbours.

The day after the funeral, young Job and a bunch of lively dogs came down again with an urgent message from Mrs Carew requesting him to call.

"Is your mistress worse, Job?" he said.

"She be main bad, Doctor, 'cording to that gal Mollie, but what 'tis I dunnot know. Mebbe she's just down wi' it all. Have ye heard ony talk yet as t' who's going to tek on th' pack?"

"Mr Barclay will, I believe. He's a good man for it."

"Ay, he may do. Bit heavy, mebbe, an' he's got a temper 'bout as bad as Pasley's."

"Bit hot perhaps at times, but he's an excellent fellow at bottom."

"All that, and his cussin' ain't to compare wi' Pasley's, which is a good thing. I c'n stand a reasonable amount o' cussin' myself and no offence taken, but Pasley did go past th' mark at times. Th' very hosses kicked when he let out. An' Jim Barclay he is good to his hosses, an' he only cusses when he must or bust. Ay, he'll do, seein' you won't tek it on yourself, Doctor."

"It's not for me, Job. A doctor's time is not entirely his own, you know."

"Ah!" said Job, and picked a twig from the hedge, and stuck it in his mouth, and trudged on in solemn silence.

"We wus rather hopin', feyther an' me," he grunted after a time, "you'd mebbe have more time now fur th' pack an' would tek it on."

"Why that, Job?"

"Well, y' see, it'll mek a difference this. It's bound to mek a difference. Folks is such silly fools 'bout such things----"

"What things?"

"Why, that there strychnine. 'S if anyone couldn't mek a li'l mistake like that. Might have sense to know ye'd never let it happen again. Even th' leeghtnin', they say, never strikes twice i' same place. Though sure 'nuff it did hit th' old mill one side one day and t'other side next day. But even then 'twere opposite sides. But folks is fools."

"So you know all about it."

"Ay, sure! 'Twere that gal Mollie told me, an' it were Mrs Thelstane's gal Bet told her. None o' us think a bit the worse o' you, Doctor, you b'lieve me. But some folks is fools--most folks, if it comes to that.... An' as to Pasley--well, he were a terror now'n again. Th' Hall's like Heaven wi'out him."

They went on again in silence for a time. But there was that in young Job's mind which had to come out.

"If 'twere me, Doctor, askin' your pardon in advance for bein' so bold, what I'd do would be this. I'd just sit quiet till they done yelpin' and yappin' 'bout it all, then I'd marry th' missus,--we all knows you was sweet on her once,--and settle down comfortable at th' Hall and tek over th' pack an' mek us all happy."

"That's out of the question, Job."

"Is it now? ... Well, I'm sorry. Wus hopin' mebbe a word of advice from a man what's old enough to be your feyther, an's known you since day you was born, might be o' some use to ye. We'd like you fain well for Master, both o' th' Hall an' th' Hunt."

"You're a good old chap, Job, and so's your father, but you'll both be doing me a favour if you'll stop any talk of that kind."

"No manner o' use?"

"No use at all."

"Well, I'm main sorry. An' so's feyther, I can tell ye."

Mrs Carew was sitting in a large chintz-covered armchair before the fire in her bedroom, when he was taken up to her by Mollie, who favoured him with her own diagnosis as they mounted the stairs.

"She's that bad again. Can't sleep and off her food. Ain't had hardly anything all day or yes'day. Just sits 'fore th' fire and mopes from morn'n till night. 'Taint natural for sure, for him 'at's gone weren't one to cry for, that's cert'n.... No, she don't complain of any pain or anything. Just sits and mopes and cries on the quiet 's if her heart was broke. Sure she'd more cause to cry before he was took than what she has now."

When he entered the room he did not at first see her, so sunk down was she in the depths of the great ear-flapped chair.

She made no attempt to rise and greet him. When he stood beside her and quietly expressed his regret at finding her no better, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed convulsively.

She looked little more than a girl, slight and frail and forlorn, as she crouched there with hidden face, and he was truly sorry for her. It was impossible for him to keep the sympathy he felt entirely out of his voice.

"What can I do for you, Mrs Carew?" he asked quietly, and the forlorn figure shook again but made no response.

"You are doing yourself harm with all this," he said gently again. "And there is really no occasion for it, that I can see."

Her silent extremity of grief--her utter discomfiture was pitiful to look upon. It touched him profoundly, for he penetrated the meaning of it. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the sacrifice he had made for her--and with pity for herself.

All he could do was to wait quietly till the feeling, roused afresh by his presence, had spent itself.

"Oh, I did not know," she whispered at last, through the shielding hands. "I did not know you would do that.... You have ruined yourself.... You should have let them hang me."

And there and then, on the spur of the moment, he leaped up a height which he had not even sighted a second before.

He had, by the sacrifice of his prospects, saved her from the legal consequences of her act. That was irrevocably past and done with, and he must pay the price. But she was paying a double due--remorse for what she herself had done, bitter sorrow at the ruinous price he had paid for her safety.

He had saved her life. Why not save her the rest?--her peace of mind, all her possibilities of future happiness.

In any case it would make no difference to him. For her it might mean all the difference between darkness and light for the rest of her life. And she looked pitifully helpless and hopeless as she lay there sobbing convulsively in the big chair.

He saw the possibility in a flash and gripped it.

"Hang you? Why on earth should anyone want to hang you?" he asked, with all the natural surprise he could put into it.

"You know,"--in a scared whisper. "Because I got him the poison----"

"Come, come now! Let us have no more of that. I was hoping a good night's rest would have ridded you of that bad dream."

"Dream?" and she looked up at him wildly. "Ah, if I could only believe it was a dream!" and she shook her head forlornly.

"Why, of course it was a dream. You were over-wrought with it all, and your mind took the bit in its teeth and ran away with you. What you've got to do now is to try to forget all about it."

"Forget!"

"How I came to make such a mistake I cannot imagine, but when I got home I saw at once that there was an extra dose gone out of my strychnine bottle instead of out of the distilled water, and that explained it at once."

"_You_? ... _You_ made the mistake?" she looked up at him again, eagerly, with warped face and knitted brows, and a wavering flutter of hope in her eyes.... "You are only saying it to comfort me."

"I'm trying to show you how foolish it is to allow yourself to be ridden by this strange notion you've got into your head."

"Strange notion? ... Did he not beg me to get him that stuff he used for the rats? And did I not get it for him? And he took it. And then----" she shivered at the remembrance of what followed when her husband took the draught.

"All in that horrible dream when your mind was running away with you----"

"And did you not come and tell me they would hang me unless I kept my mouth shut? And I lay all that dreadful night with the rope round my neck----"

"All in your dream. I'm sorry. It must have been terribly real to you."

"A dream?" and she stared wistfully into the fire, hex hands clasping and unclasping nervously. "If I could believe it!"

"You must believe what I tell you, and forget all about it and recover yourself."

"And you?" she said after a pause.

"I shall be all right. Don't trouble your head about me."

"If I did not do it," she said, after another long silent gazing into the fire, "then there would be no need for you to hate me----"

"No need whatever,--all part of that stupid dream."

"And ... sometime perhaps ... you would think better of me ... as you used to do. Oh,--Wulfrey! ..."

If it had all happened as he had almost persuaded her to believe, he might have fallen into his own pit.

For, under the stress of her emotions,--the wild hope of the possibility of relief from the horror that had been weighing her down,--the letting in of this thread of sunshine into the blackness of her despair,--the sudden joy of the thought that it was not she who needed Wulfrey's forgiveness, but he hers;--the shadows and the years fell from her, and she was more like the Elinor Baynard he had once been in love with than he had seen her since the day she married Pasley Carew.

"We must not think of any such things," he said quickly, but not unkindly. He was very sorry for her, but he was no longer in love with her. "At present all we've got to think about is getting you quite yourself again. I will send you up some medicine,--if you won't be afraid to take it----"

"Oh, Wulfrey! ..." with all the reproach she could put into it, and anxiously, "You will come again soon?"

"If you get on well perhaps. If you don't I shall turn you over to Dr Newman," and he left her.

"She ain't agoing to die, Doctor?" asked Mollie, as she waylaid him.

"No, Mollie. She's going to get better."

"Ah, I knew it'd do her good if you came to see her," said the astute handmaid with an approving look.

"Get her to eat and feed her up. She's been letting herself run down."

"Ah, she'll eat now maybe, if so be 's you've given her a bit of an appetite," said Mollie hopefully; and Dr Wulfrey went away home.

XI

But even two patients hardly make a practice, and though from the stolid commoner folk calls still came for 'th' Doctor's' services, upon the better classes a sudden blessing of unusual health appeared to have fallen, or else----

Dr Newman bought a horse about this time, and, though he did not as yet cut much of a figure on horseback, it enabled him to get about as he had never had occasion to do since he settled in the village, and it seemed as though, in his case as in others, practice would in time make him passable.

Wulfrey watched the course of events quietly and with a certain equanimity. His mind was quite made up to go abroad, but he would not go till he was satisfied that that was the only course left to him.

Everybody he met was as friendly as ever, the men especially, but sickness was a rare thing with them at any time, and their women-folk seemed to be getting along very well, for the time being without medical assistance, so far at all events as Dr Wulfrey Dale was concerned.

Mrs Carew was better. Whatever she really believed as to the actual facts of her husband's death, she apparently accepted Dale's statement, to the great relief of her mind and consequent benefit to her health. She sent for the Doctor as often as she reasonably could, and sometimes without any better reason than her desire to see him. Until at last he told her she was perfectly well and he would come no more unless there were actual need.

"But there is actual need, Wulfrey. It does me good to see you. If you don't come I shall fall into a low state again."

"If you do I shall know it is simple perversity and I'll send Dr Newman to you."

"Mollie would never let him in."

Which was likely enough, for Mollie's mind was quite made up as to the only right and proper course for matters to take under all the present circumstances.

The March winds brought on a mild epidemic of influenza.

Dr Newman and his new horse were ostentatiously busy. Wulfrey saw that he had waited long enough, and that now it was time to go. No one could accuse him of running away. It was his practice that had found its legs and walked over to Dr Newman.

He made his arrangements at once and by no means downcastly. The hanging-on had been trying. It was new life to be up and doing, with a new world somewhere in front to be discovered and conquered.

He packed his trunks, gave Mr Truscott, the lawyer, instructions to dispose of his house and everything in it except certain specified articles and pictures, arranged with his bankers at Chester to collect and re-invest his dividends, drew out a couple of hundred pounds to go on with, told them he was going abroad and they might not hear from him for some time to come, and went round to say good-bye to Jim Barclay and Elinor Carew.

"Where are you going?" asked Barclay, when he heard he was off.

"Wherever the chase may lead," said Wulfrey, in better spirits than he had been for many a day. "I shall go first to the States and Canada and have a good look round. If any place lays hold of me I may settle down there."

"For good and all?"

"Possibly. Can't say till I see what it's like. I want you to take Graylock and Billyboy till I come back. You know all about them. There's no one else I'd care to leave 'em with and I don't care to sell them."

"They'll miss you, same as the rest of us."

"For a week or two, maybe. Dr Newman is getting into things nicely, but you might give him a lesson or two in riding, Jim."

"---- him, I'd liefer break his back!" was Barclay's terse comment. "You'll let me know where you get to, Wulf, and maybe I'll take a run over to see you, if you really find it in your heart to settle out there. I'll bring the horses with me if you like."

"I'll let you know. Fine sporting country, I believe,--bears, wolves, buffaloes, game of sorts."

"Well, good-bye and God bless you, my boy! Remember there'll always be one man in the old country that wants you. I'd sooner die than have that new man poking round me. I'll send for old Tom Tamplin, hanged if I don't."

Wulfrey rode on to the Hall.

"Going away, Wulf? Where to and for how long?" asked Elinor, anxious and troubled.

"That depends. I've not been up to the mark lately and a good long change will set me up."

"But you will come back?"

"I have really no plans made, except to get away for a time and see a bit of the outside world."

"I was hoping ... you would stop and ... sometime, perhaps..." and the small white hands clasped and unclasped nervously, as was her way when her mind was upset.

"The change I am sure will be good for me. And you are quite all right again. You are looking better than I've seen you for a long time past."

"I'm all right," she said drearily, "except that I have bad dreams now and again. I cannot be quite sure in my own mind----"

"Now, now!"--shaking a peremptory finger at her. "That is all past and done with. Bad dreams are forbidden, remember!"

"I can't help their coming. They come in spite of all my trying at times. And they are always the same. I see Pasley lying on the bed, raging and cursing, and ordering me to go and get him----"

"It's only a dream of a dream. I was hoping you had quite got the better of it. You must fight against it. Now I must run. Got a lot of things to do yet, and I'm off first thing in the morning. Good-bye, Elinor,--and all happiness to you!"