"Cowards! Fools! Don't let him go without an answer," shrieked the woman with the basket, who was entangled two deep in the backward rush. The next moment there very nearly was an accident, since, failing of all else, the angry orator flung the first thing she could lay her hands upon--the handful of knives and forks--at the car with her full force, and one of the missiles, a three-pronged iron fork, buried itself in the fleshy part of Ned's right hand, as it held the steerer, making him and it swerve. The fork quivered as he steadied the wheel. Then he turned and raised his hat with his other hand. "Thank you!" he said, and the word fell on a half-awed, half-alarmed silence. "She didn't mean to do it," began Woods hurriedly. "Shall I pull it out, my lord?" "Of course she didn't," replied Ned coolly. "If she had meant to do it, she would have killed a baby. That sort of woman is built that way. Wait a bit, Woods, till we are through the works. I look like a blessed St. Sebastian with it quivering in my flesh!" "You ought to have that seen to," said little Woods when the surgical operation was over, and they had had to call on the _chauffeur's_ handkerchief as well as their own. "It has gone very deep." "I'll get Ramsay to tie it up properly. We can go back by Egworth," replied Lord Blackborough. They met Peter Ramsay on the steps, carrying a leathern instrument-bag. "Come along to my room," he said cheerfully. "I've everything I want in here." As they opened the door a woman's figure rose hurriedly from an evidently searching inquiry into the contents of a bottom drawer, for under-vests and stockings lay strewn about. Both Helen Tressilian and Dr. Ramsay blushed scarlet, but Ned's eyes twinkled. "Caught in the act, my dear! Caught in the act!" he said amusedly. "I thought--I hoped--he had gone out for a long while on an urgent call," retorted Mrs. Tressilian, looking quite viciously at the doctor, who, to hide his vexation, was searching in his bag. "I am sorry I disappointed your expectations, Mrs. Tressilian," he said stiffly, "but when I arrived I was not wanted. The man was dead." Helen looked as if she had received a blow in the face. Her lip quivered. "Undo these rags, will you?" said Ned to her kindly, wishing in his heart that he could take them and shake them together once and for all. "I haven't much time to lose." She had forgotten her annoyance in sympathy when Dr. Ramsay looked up from his task. "I'm afraid I shall have to hurt you a bit. I don't like those very deep holes, possibly from a dirty fork----" "It wasn't very clean," admitted Ned. "Perhaps I had better call Sister Ann----" began the doctor doubtfully, and Helen flushed up in a second. "I have done some work of the kind, Dr. Ramsay," she said; "but if you prefer----"