"Tell me what you think of that resolve of my brother's," he asked me presently. He turned from watching the passing crowd and looked for the first time in my face; and then he got upon his feet. "You will perhaps give me your opinion later?" he said. "You will think about it, and let me hear when I come back?" I did not wait for his coming back. I went to my room and stayed there. I don't know if he looked for me at our table in the window next morning, for I did not go to the coffee-room for breakfast. And by eleven o'clock I was sitting in the ladies' drawing-room--empty as Sahara at that hour--with my hotel bill in my hand, wondering how it was possible that such a little, little holiday should have cost so very much. Then he came into the room. He sat down opposite to me at the round table, and I saw that he had a telegram in his hand. "I have bad news for you," he said. "Your twin sister is dead." "Oh!" I breathed. What could I do but sit there turning red and white, and looking like a fool before him? "It is a sad and curious coincidence that my twin brother expired at the same instant. What is there for us to do but to console each other?" He reached out a hand, palm upwards, to me across the table. "You will find life pleasanter as a doctor's wife than as a doctor," he said. "And----" But I have told you enough till next mail, Berthalina. By that time, perhaps, you will have prepared yourself for the rest of what he said to me, and what I answered. I wonder if you will think I have been a sensible and self-restrained woman all my life to act like a rash, precipitate fool in the finish? I wonder! AUNTIE "And _now_, pray, what are you gnashing your teeth about? You never rested until I'd made Auntie promise to stay with us. I didn't wish for her; she didn't wish to come; but, as she's here, the least we can do is to behave decently to her." "Who said we shouldn't behave decently to her?" "Well, to see you standing there cursing and gnashing your teeth while you brush your hair!" "I don't curse, or gnash my teeth, or even brush my hair in public, do I?" "Oh, of course, it's the wife who has the monopoly of all such pleasing demonstrations!" the wife said. Then she pushed her arms through the short sleeves of the blouse she was going to wear, in honour of Auntie, at dinner that night, and presented her back to Augustus Mellish in order that he might perform a husband's part and fasten the garment. "You, who have never been in her delightful home at Surbiton, don't know the luxurious sort of life Auntie leads," Mrs Mellish went on. "Travels with her maid, generally; but I told her we could not put her up. Keeps four servants; never does a thing for herself, but is pampered and made much of in every way. Money, of course. There isn't anything in _Auntie_ to call forth all that devotion."