He turned to seek his room. There was no help for it: he must go to this revelry. Edina could not go alone: and, indeed, he had no plea for declining to accompany her. Not until he was taking off his coat did he remember the blow on his shoulder. Frank Raynor, in his mind's grievous trouble, had neither felt the pain left by the blow, nor remembered that he had received one. Yet it was a pretty severe stroke, and the shoulder on which it fell was stiff and aching. Frank, his coat off, was passing his hand gently over the place, perhaps to ascertain the extent of the damage, when the door was tapped at and then opened by Edina. "I have brought you a flower for your button-hole, Frank." It was a hot-house flower, white and beautiful as wax. Dr. Raynor had brought it from a patient's house where he had been in the afternoon, and Edina had kept it until the last moment as a small surprise to Frank. He took it mechanically; thanking her, it is true, but very tamely, his thoughts evidently far away. Edina could only note the change: what had become of Frank's light-heartedness? "Is anything wrong with your shoulder?" "It has a bit of a bruise, I think," he carelessly answered, putting the flower down on his dressing-table. She shut the door, and Frank went on dressing, always mechanically. How many nights, and days, and weeks, and years, would it be before his mind would lose the horror of the recent scene! "I wish to Heaven that she-demon, Molly Janes, had been _there!_" he cried, stamping his foot on the floor in a sudden access of grief and passion. "But for her vagaries, I should not have been called out this evening, and this frightful calamity would not have happened!" Edina was ready when he went down, cloaked and shawled, a warm hood over her smooth brown hair. The doctor did not keep a close carriage; such a thing as a fly was not to be had at Trennach; and so they had to walk. Mrs. St. Clare had graciously intimated that she would send her carriage for Miss Raynor if the night turned out a bad one. But the night was bright and fine. "You will be _sure_ not to sit up for us, papa," said Edina, while Frank was putting on his overcoat. "It is quite uncertain what time we shall return home." "No, no, child; I shall not sit up." When they came to the end of the village, Frank turned on to the roadway, at the back of the parsonage. Edina, who was on his arm, asked him why he did so: the Bare Plain was the nearer way. "But this is less dreary," was his answer. "We shall be there soon enough." "Nay, I think the Bare Plain far less dreary than the road: especially on such a night as this," said Edina. "Here we are over-shadowed by trees: on the Plain we have the full moonlight." He said no more: only kept on his way. It did not matter; it would make only about three minutes' difference. Edina stepped out cheerfully; she never made a fuss over trifles. By-and-by, she began to wonder at his silence. It was very unusual.