Not a minute too soon. Before they had well reached the kitchen, Dr. Rane's latch-key was heard. "There's the master," cried Phillis under her breath, as he turned into his consulting-room. "It's a good thing he didn't find us up there." "I want to say a word to him, Phillis; I think I'll go in," said Jelly, taking a sudden resolution to acquaint Dr. Rane with what she had seen. The truth was, her mind felt so unhinged, knowing not what to believe or disbelieve, that she thought she must speak, or die. "Need you bother him now?--what's it about?" asked Phillis. "I'd let him get his breakfast first." But Jelly went on to the consulting-room; and found herself very nearly knocked down by the doctor--who was turning quickly out of it. She asked if she could speak to him: he said Yes, if she made haste; but he wanted to catch Mr. Seeley before the latter went out. "And your breakfast, sir?" called out Phillis in compassionate tones. "I'll take some presently," was the answer. "What is it you want, Jelly?" Jelly carefully closed the door before speaking. She then entered on her tale. At first the doctor supposed, by all this caution, that she was about to consult him on some private ailment of her own; St. Anthony's fire in the face, for instance, or St. Vitus's dance in the legs; and thought she might have chosen a more fitting moment. But he soon found it was nothing of the sort. With her hands pressing heavily the back of the patients' chair, Jelly told her tale. The doctor stood facing her, his arms folded, his back to the drawn blind. At first he did not appear to understand her. "Saw my wife upon the landing in her nightgown?" he exclaimed--and Jelly thought he looked startled. "Surely she was not so imprudent as to get out of bed and go there!" "But, sir, it is said that she was then dead!" "Dead when? She did not die until nine o'clock. She could not have known what she was doing," continued Dr. Rane, passing his hand over his forehead. "Perhaps she may then have caught a chill. Perhaps----" "You are misunderstanding me, sir," interrupted Jelly. "It was in the night I saw this; some hours after Mrs. Rane's death." Dr. Rane looked bewildered. He gazed narrowly at Jelly, as if wondering what it was she would infer. "Not _last_ night?" "Yes, sir. Or, I'd rather say this morning; for it was one o'clock. I saw her standing there as plainly as I see you at this moment." "Why, Jelly, you must have been dreaming?" "I was as wide awake, sir, as I am now. I had just got home from Ketler's. I can't think what it was I did see," added Jolly, dropping her voice. "You saw nothing," was the decisive answer--and in the doctor's tone there was some slight touch of anger. "Fancy plays tricks with the best of us: it must have played you one last night." "I have been thinking whether it was possible that--that--she was not really dead, sir," persisted Jelly. "Whether she could have got up, and----"