Daisy said no more. Swelling with resentment and jealousy, she walked by his side in silence. Frank saw her to the surgery-door, and then turned back rapidly. She went in; passed Sam, who was leisurely dusting the counter, and sat down in the parlour by the fire. Her state of mind was not one to be envied. Jealousy, you know, makes the food it feeds on. Mrs. Frank Raynor was making very disagreeable food for herself, indeed. She gave the reins to her imagination, and it presented her with all sorts of suggestive horrors. The worst was that she did not, and could not, regard these pictured fancies as possible delusions, emanating from her own brain, and to be cautiously received; but she converted them into undoubted facts. The sounds of Sam's movements in the surgery, his answers to applicants who came in, penetrated to her through the half-open door; but, though they touched her ear in a degree, they did not touch her senses. She was as one who heard not. Thus she sat on, until midday, indulging these visions to the full extent of her fancy, and utterly miserable. At least, perhaps not quite utterly so: for when people are in the state of angry rage that Daisy was, they cannot feel very acutely. A few minutes after twelve, Sam appeared. He stared to see his mistress sitting just as she had come in, not even her cloak removed, or her bonnet unfastened. "A letter for you, please, ma'am. The postman have just brought it in." Daisy took the letter from him without a word. It proved to be from her sister Charlotte, Mrs. Townley. Mrs. Townley wrote to say that she was back again at the house in Westbourne Terrace, and would be glad to see Daisy. She, with her children, had been making a long visit of several months to her mother at The Mount, and she had only now returned. "I did intend to be back for the New Year," she wrote; "but mamma and Lydia would not hear of it. I have many things to tell you, Daisy: so come to me as soon as you get this note. If your husband will join us at dinner--seven o'clock--there will be no difficulty about your getting home again. Say that I shall be happy to see him." Should she go, or should she not go? Mrs. Frank Raynor was in so excited a mood as not to care very much what she did. And--if she went, and he did not come in the evening, he would no doubt take the opportunity of passing it with Rosaline Bell. She went upstairs, took her things off, and passed into the drawing-room. The fire was burning brightly. Eve was a treasure of a servant, and attended to it carefully. Frank had given orders that a fire should be always kept up there: it was a better room for his wife than the one downstairs, and more cheerful.