Dr. Tremayne went into his surgery to attend to the string of other patients who were waiting for him, and Mavis and Merle sat in the little front garden, on the green bench under the fuchsia tree outside the French window. They had not the heart to go for a walk. Mrs. Penruddock, kind as usual, but overwhelmed with trouble, had greeted them, and taken them upstairs for one brief peep at the invalid. They had not gone inside the room, but from the doorway they had seen Bevis lying in bed with ice on his head, so thin and changed and hollow-eyed, that he scarcely looked like their old friend. As they sat in the garden, talking in undertones, the gate clicked, and Tudor Williams came up the path to the door--such a subdued Tudor, without any of his former jauntiness and gay flippancy of manner. When he saw the girls he crossed the grass and shook hands with them. "I've come to ask about the poor chap," he said quietly. "Mother sent down a message to Dr. Tremayne to say that if there's anything we can do we'll be very glad. We'd send Jones for ice or anything of that sort, you know. He'd take out the car directly and get what was wanted." "Thanks very much, we'll tell Uncle David. Oh, there's Mrs. Penruddock! Perhaps you'd better speak to her and give her the message. There might be something wanted at once." Mrs. Penruddock had come into the parlour, and now walked to the French window to meet Tudor, who inquired about Bevis, and explained his errand. She mopped her eyes as she thanked him. "I'm sure people have all been so kind," she gulped. "Everything that can be done has been done. But there he lies rolling his head on his pillow, and talking for ever about the 'curse of Cain'. He can't get it out of his mind but what he's murdered you. It seems no use telling him. He just listens, and goes on again how he knows you're lying dead on the cliff. I wonder if he saw you if it would put that right? Could I ask you to step up to his bedroom for a minute, and let him have a look at you, and see for himself that you're alive?" "Oh, may I?" said Tudor, passing through the French window into the parlour, and following Mrs. Penruddock upstairs. He came down again after perhaps five minutes, and, big manly boy though he was, his eyes were red, and his voice was choking. "I'd no idea the poor chap was in such a state," he burst out to Mavis and Merle. "It's awful to see him with his hollow eyes and his white hands. He asked me to forgive him! Forgive him! It's I who ought to ask for forgiveness. It was all my fault! Mine entirely! I was an utter vulgar brute and beast! I never thought--" But seeing somebody coming to the gate, and boy-like not wanting to give an exhibition of his feelings, Tudor bolted back into the parlour, and going out by the side door into the stackyard, crossed the orchard, and went home over the fields to The Warren.