Jelly recollected the scene at breakfast; the startled pallor on Dr. Rane's face, when told that Edmund North was dead: she supposed that had spoiled his appetite. Her inquisitive eyes turned unceremoniously to the fowl, and she saw that the merest slice off the wing was alone eaten. "Perhaps he is not well to-day," said Jelly. "I don't know about his being well; he's odder than I ever saw him," answered Phillis. "I shouldn't wonder but he has had his stomach turned over them two half-drowned men." She carried the dinner-things across to the kitchen. Jelly, who assisted at the ceremony, as far as watching and talking went, was standing in the passage, when her quick eyes caught sight of two small pieces of glass. She stooped to pick them up. "Look, Phillis! You have been breaking something. It's uncommonly careless to leave the bits about." "Is it!" retorted Phillis. "Your eyes are in everything. I thought I took 'em all up," she added, looking on the ground. "What did you break?" "Nothing. It was the doctor. He dropped one of them dusty glass jars down the stairs. It did give me a start. You should have heard the smash." "What made him drop it?" asked Jelly. "Goodness knows," returned the older woman. "He's not a bit like himself to-day; it's just as if something had come to him." She began her dinner as she spoke, standing, her usual mode of taking it. Jelly, following her free-and-easy habits, stood against the door-post, apparently interested in the progress of the meal. They presented a contrast, these two women, the one a thin, upright giantess, the other a dwarf stooping forward. Jelly, a lady's-maid, held herself of course altogether above Phillis, an ignorant (as Jelly would have described her) servant-of-all-work, though condescending to drop in for the sake of gossip. "Did you happen to hear how the doctor found Ketler?" "As if I should be likely to hear!" was Phillis's retort. "He'd not tell me, and I couldn't ask. My master's not one you can put questions to, Jelly." A silence ensued. The gossip apparently flagged to-day. Phillis had it chiefly to herself, for Jelly vouchsafed only a brief remark now and again. She was engaged in the mental process of wondering what _had_ come to Dr. Rane. CHAPTER V. RETROSPECT. There must be a little retrospect to make things intelligible to the reader; and it may as well be given at once.