"No, wife," he laughed, uneasily, "I have not been poaching. Don't worry about it; it is only just a bruise." But Kate had made up her mind not to be put off. "You _shall_ tell me. Do you think I'm a baby, Griff, that I must needs have everything unpleasant kept from me?" "You know where old Mother Strangeways' cottage is? I passed it on my way back to-night, and heard cries from within. I went in and found her dying. That is why I was so late in getting home. I had to slip across to Marshcotes for the doctor before coming on here." "Yes, but the cut on your head?" persisted Kate. "She hated me for some reason or other, and threw a bottle at me. That is all. Tut, child, the woman is dead; it is too late to tremble for what she might have done. Now, off you run to bed, while I go and change these wet things. I won't waste your fine blaze, Katey, but I'll read for an hour or so and have a whisky hot." "Can't I stay with you, dear? I don't want to sleep a bit, and----" "No, you can't! Off with you; I'm too tired to carry you upstairs by main force." She kissed him good night. Just as she was going Griff called her back. "Don't say anything about this to the mother, will you? It would only bother her." "No, not a word, if you had rather I didn't.--Mother is not well, Griff; I wish she would have the doctor." "She will have the doctor, Kate, when she is too weak to forbid him to cross the threshold," laughed Griff. "Nothing serious, is it?" "I don't think so. Only, she seemed rather feverish to-night when she went to bed. I made her drink some black-currant tea." "Poor old lady! She'll be well by morning, never fear, lest you should give her another dose." But the old lady was far from well on the morrow, and Griff began to grow anxious. At the end of the day he would hear of no refusal, but set off on Lassie to fetch the doctor from Marshcotes. The doctor pronounced it a case of pleurisy, and anticipated no great danger so far as the patient's present condition went. "She will get wet through, that mother of yours, and go about afterwards without changing. You're an obstinate lot, you Lomaxes, and why you haven't died out long ago as a race, passes my wits." The old doctor had known Griff's father, and he exercised his privilege as a friend of the family to grumble on the slightest pretext. "Carelessness toughens people, if they begin early enough. It is coddling that sends up the death-rate," laughed Griff. "Nonsense! There's a mean in all things. Only the other day I called to see a patient down in the village, and there was your mother, reading away by the fire as if her clothes were not filling the room with steam. She had been out for a walk in the rain, she told me, and hadn't had time to change. Well, now she has time to be ill. I wish you good day, young man. You're an obstinate lot."