ilst Christina looked at the orthodox red walls, the few conventional engravings, the closely-curt

. More than once, whilst she sat and waited in the dreary room, whose outlook into the depths of the pine woods was as depressing as everything else about it, she half-rose, with a determination to go elsewhere and seek another doctor. Remembering, however, the urgency of her message, and the uncertainty of finding another medical man within any reasonable distance, she was deterred from act

kind; it gave her a sense of helpfulness, and the man's personality, li

for the mastery. But beyond and above everything else, it was a reliable face: Christina knew, with a subtle and sure instinct

es?" she sai

tokes is away; he was summoned away suddenly. My nam

fervour of which she was not aware, until she saw th

rdon," she stammer

us, and very boyish laugh, "and I will promise not to tell Doctor Stokes what

ered; "I don't know Doctor Stokes. I am a stran

s not he?" asked Fergusson, his amused

evance, "but-I didn't think the person who lived in-thi

w back his hea

ity by the rooms in whi

room like this," Christina answered vehemently, "or call hi

total stranger to me too; we may be libelling h

omewhere, on a matter of life a

ot delay. Where am I wanted?" He touched a bell by the fireplace. "I w

oke in terse, business-like tones, his

an who answered his bell. "Now, tell me everythin

y living soul where you have been; and you must swear to te

stared at

where I go, and what

quailing a little before the

his voice growing imperious. "What reason can y

doubtful, and as if you didn't mean to do what I ask. I have only come here as a messenger. T

iddles. Try to tell me quietly where I have to g

how strangely her words must fall upon his ears,

She asked me to fetch a doctor. She said it was a matter of life and death, and she made me promise to ask the doctor

or said in a low voice, "and you don't

e,' but I know nothing more than I have told you. You will go to her? You will make the pr

aimed, after a moment's pause; "if it is really a ma

u will

with a curiously grave

should refuse to take such an

t your doing it. Only-when I think of her beautiful face, and of her eyes that seemed t

refuse t

s," she answered with spirit, "and I shall go and fi

over Fergusson

earing in the dark, so to speak, and what guarantee have I that

ing discreditable," Christina excl

's smile

ate in you; you are n

stone. I am nurse to Lady Cicely Redesdale's little girl, and it was

l tell me where I am to go. I will not take my man, lest there should be any risk of my destination being discovered. And-I will take the required oath. Mind-

ved the strange message, and Fergusson, having deposited her safely within a very few hundred yards of Mrs. Nairne'

ows across it. "What on earth possessed anybody to build a house in this gloomy hole, when all the uplands were there to be built upon?" So Fergusson's musings ran on, whilst the shadows thickened round him, the gloom of the place beginning to oppress him like a nightmare. The roughness and steepness of the road o

ping the car before a door in the wall; "and now, h

green door, then at the frowning wall, and finally up the steep way by which he had come

around him was very eerie, and Fergusson found that some words of

of death ... The gra

over the valley. The lane, as he could faintly see, ended only a few yards beyond the gate at which he stood, and merged itself into a grassy track amongst

und the wall, seeking for another entrance. A narrow, grass-grown path, evidently rarely used, ran close under the wall, but Fergusson made the whole circuit of the place without finding any other means of entrance, excepting an old iron gate, rusty with age, choked up with weeds and rank grass. It was obvious that the gate had not been opened for years, and tha

de the house. When the echoes of the sharply clanging door died away, silence settled down more deeply than ever upon the place; and Fergusson, as he

speaking in so appealing a voice, determined him to make one more attempt to gain access to the inaccessible house

oment to take breath; then, when no one responded to his efforts, he was beginning again to hammer at

is th

in the lock, bolts were shot back, and the door was opened. A woman stood in the aperture, a woman

e," he said. "Is there s

you come in? I am sorry there was any delay in

and Fergusson now observed tha

lting the green door again; then, without uttering another syllable, she led the way up a flagged path, across a bare and de

e doctor's guide, her face suddenly grown livid and pinched, broke into a run. They were passing along a corridor, which intersected the hall at one end, and even in his hurry Fergusson noticed the thickness of the carpet beneath

her plain but kindly face towards him, he saw how strained and a

ed in low, horror-stricken ac

did not bring with it even a second of hesitation. He opened the door widely, and stepped straight into the apartment. Excepting for a night-light burning on a chest of drawers, the room was in darkness, and he could make ou