Doctor Beatty was with Patty a long time and used every art he had--he hadn't many, but he used all he had with a degree of patience that was surprising--to quiet Patty, who needed quieting if ever anybody did. He was more alarmed by that disturbance of Patty's than he would have acknowledged; more than he had expected, he found, although he had been in daily expectation of something of the kind. He found her muttering to herself and exclaiming brokenly. She looked at him with wild eyes. "Go away!" she cried as he entered. "He's not, I tell you. He never did!" "No," Doctor Beatty agreed calmly. "Certainly not. But there! You don't want me to go away, Patty." He pulled up a chair and sat down. "Not that chair!" she cried. "Not that chair! That's the chair she sat in--Alicia Upjohn. If you sit in it you'll say so, too. Take any other, but not that one." "Oh, very well," he said. And he drew up another chair and sat down. "Now, tell me what's the matter." At this Patty began to weep violently. Her sentences were broken, and now and then she gave a loud cry that seemed to be wrung from her heart. "Alicia oughtn't to have said it. She might have known how--that I--how I would f-f--Oh!" She could not speak for a moment. "She just wanted me to think that that was where my money went. She's a spiteful thing. Oh, how could she? How could she? Cruel! Cruel!" Patty fell to weeping again. She seemed to lose all control over herself. She rocked to and fro and leaned so far over, in her new fit of crying, that Doctor Beatty put out his hand to save her from falling. He was glad to have her cry so. She seized his hand and pressed it and looked up at him appealingly, her eyes raining tears. "Oh, Meriwether," she sobbed, "you don't think he does, do you? Tell me that you don't." He looked down into those faded eyes. "Certainly I don't, Patty," he answered gently. Out of the pity which he felt for her, he may have pressed her hand a little. He had but the faintest idea what she was talking about. Patty flushed and relaxed her hold upon his hand. "You are a c-c-comfort, Meriwether," she said more calmly. "It is a great deal to know that I have one friend, at least, who understands me. I--I--have so few, Meriwether!" She began to sob again. "S-so f-f-few, and I used to have so so many!" "Cry quietly as much as you like, Patty. It will do you good." He made a slight movement, at which Patty cried out. "Don't go! Don't go yet!" She put out her hand blindly, as if to stop him. "I'll stay until you are yourself again. Never fear." He sighed faintly.