Rupert glanced back at her, an amused twinkle in his grey eyes. "You don't let obstacles hinder your attaining your goal?" he questioned. "I--don't think I do," was the reply; "and especially when it is a matter of real importance--one of life and death." By this time they were whirling along the road at a pace which rendered conversation difficult, and Christina sat back in her comfortable seat, looking first at the man who had spoken to her, and was now steering the machine, then at his companion who sat beside him. Now that Rupert was no longer smiling pleasantly at her, she observed how grave and worn was his face, what new deep lines seemed to have carved themselves about his mouth, what a shadow of pain, or of some gnawing anxiety lay in his eyes. "He is in trouble," the girl thought, her heart contracting with pity, as her eyes rested on the strong, rugged face. "I wish I could help him; he looks as if he had lost something he cared for with all his soul, and it is breaking his heart!" From the strong face, with its lines of pain, her eyes turned to his companion--a slight, alert man, military in build--and with fair, good-humoured features devoid of any marked personality. His blue eyes had brightened when Christina stopped the car, and whilst she talked to Rupert, he watched her expressive face with growing admiration. They had only proceeded a short distance on their journey, when he turned round to the girl, and said kindly: "We are going a great pace, and you are not dressed for motoring; you must be cold. Will you wrap yourself in this?" and, drawing from behind him a heavy fur coat, which he had brought as an extra wrap, if necessary, he handed it to Christina, who gratefully rolled herself in its warm folds. "By Jove! she looks more fetching than ever, with her face looking out of all that fur," the blue-eyed young man reflected, when he again glanced over his shoulder at her, "those green eyes of hers are like no others I ever saw," and Christina, little as she was in the habit of considering such things, could not help noticing how often during their three-miles' drive, the young man turned to look at her, or to shout a remark. The grey-eyed man looked round only once, to say shortly but kindly: "Quite comfortable?" But even those two words in the vibrating voice, had, as before, an oddly thrilling effect on Christina's pulses. That rapid drive across the moorland, in the low sunlight of the December afternoon, seemed to her for long afterwards, like part of some extraordinary dream--a dream in which she, and the grey-eyed man, and the beautiful white-faced woman, were all playing parts; a dream which had no real relation at all to the commonplace details of everyday life. "Here is Manborough," Rupert called out, when, over the brow of a steep hill, they came in sight of clustering red-roofed houses amongst pine woods; "now where does the doctor live? What is his name?"