"It's rather a brain wave. Perhaps he might," said Dr. Tremayne thoughtfully. "I'm growing a little tired of being perpetually in harness. When a man gets to my age he begins to crave for some leisure. I've been trying for the last three years to write a book on 'The Treatment of Tuberculosis', but I can't find the time to do it. Directly I begin somebody rings up and wants me to go and see them." "I should smash the horrid old telephone and then they couldn't ring you up," laughed Merle. "That's all right, little Pussie, but they'd send a messenger to fetch me instead, so it would come to just the same thing in the end." "Why do doctors always go?" "Because people can't do without us, I suppose. Of course we don't make unnecessary journeys, but when a case is serious we turn out whatever the weather or however late it is." "I know; that's what Daddy always says," put in Mavis. "He comes in tired to death, and goes out again in a snowstorm because the case is serious. I think doctors are just the best and kindest men in all the world." They were quite sorry to leave the wood and go back to the car, but time was creeping on fast. Dr. Tremayne paid his visit at Clavedon Farm, then drove on to Mrs. Jarvis's cottage, which was close by. The girls took the parcel between them, and they all three walked together up the little garden to the open door. They found Mrs. Jarvis sitting in her kitchen with a neighbour to keep her company. Since the death of her son the postwoman had failed greatly, and for the last week she had not undertaken her duties in connection with the pillar-box. To-day she seemed hysterical and excited. She sprang up at the sight of Dr. Tremayne, and began a loud complaint of pains in her head, mixed up with lamentations on the death of General Talland. "She's been like this all the week, Doctor," explained the neighbour. "She's not fit to be left alone. Ever since she heard the news about General Talland, she's been going on with this wild talk. We take no notice of her. He's nothing to her. It's just one of those queer fancies she gets sometimes. She'll perhaps calm down again." [Illustration: SHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A BROWN-PAPER PARCEL _Page 275_] "Can you bear to look at some of Jerry's things, Mrs. Jarvis?" asked the Doctor. At the mention of her son the poor woman's excitable mood changed; instead of shouting she spoke more quietly, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned over the trifles that had been sent to her. "Jerry! My boy Jerry!" she murmured. "I always said he'd come back. He oughtn't to have gone and left me--ought he? And he took--I never told anyone what he took! He was a bad son to me." "Never mind that now he's dead and gone," put in the neighbour. "Ay, he's dead and gone, and so is General Talland, so is General Talland." "She's off again on that point," groaned the neighbour.