The news had afforded her extreme satisfaction, and she had said to herself at once that they must meet again. Now she remembered how kind and considerate he had been on the occasions when she had sought his advice. Also he was a doctor, and doctors were accustomed to receiving confidences which they never, in any circumstances, disclosed, she reflected. Supposing she were to approach him with reference to this dreadful affair, tell him exactly what had happened, how, though married, she had been hopelessly, though harmlessly, in love with the late Sir Stephen Lethbridge, and if then she were to show him the letter she had received that day threatening her with blackmail---- Somehow she felt she would be able to trust him implicitly, and that his advice would be sound, so on the following afternoon, after telephoning that she wished to see him particularly, she called at the Brees and was at once shown up. The doctor was frankly glad to see her, and gratified when he found that she wished to consult him on an unprofessional matter. “I had a letter from Preston the other day,” he said, when they had conversed for a few minutes, “and he seems to have recovered his health and spirits considerably. I suppose you know that Jessica and her inseparables are staying at the hotel in Dieppe where he is; but you may not have heard that they and Miss Hagerston succeeded between them in breaking the bank at the Casino some nights ago.” “I had not heard that Jessica was there at all,” Cora answered. “But then I have not heard from Yootha since she went there--she wrote to me last from Monmouthshire. But surely you are mistaken, doctor, in saying that she helped Jessica and her friends to break the bank? Yootha was barely on speaking terms with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson the last time she wrote to me.” “Indeed I am not mistaken, Mrs. Hartsilver,” Johnson replied with an odd look. “Between ourselves, I rather wish I were, because, as you know, I am not partial to that woman. Preston told me in his letter that she and Miss Hagerston had suddenly become extraordinarily friendly, and he seemed a good bit upset about it. They all met by accident at the Royal Hotel, it seems, and Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson induced Miss Hagerston to play with her at the tables at the Casino, and they had the most amazing luck--even before they broke the bank. Miss Hagerston, he says, has become bitten by the gambling mania, and you know what that means--or perhaps you don’t; I hope you don’t.” It was some time before Cora could brace herself to broach the subject on which she had come to consult Doctor Johnson. She had been silent for a minute, feeling extremely embarrassed, when suddenly she said: “I have come to see you, Doctor Johnson, to ask your advice on a matter I feel I couldn’t speak about to anybody else, and of course you will treat what I am going to say as strictly confidential. Doctor, I am in very great trouble.”