Cuckoo read it, trembling. In her early days telegrams came often to her door--"Meet me at Verrey's, four-thirty"; "Piccadilly Circus, five o'clock to-day." Such messages flickered through her youth, forming gradually a legend of her life. But this summons from the doctor at the same time frightened her and braced her heart. It might mean that Julian was ill, in danger--she knew not what. But at least it broke through the appalling inaction, the dreary stagnation, of her days. The lady of the feathers had fought indeed, of late, that worst enemy, mental despair, bred of grim patience at last grown weary. That was not the battle she had been inspired to expect, to prepare for. The doctor's telegram at least swept the unforeseen foe from the field, and seemed to set the real enemy full in view. "There ain't any answer," the lady of the feathers said to Mrs. Brigg, who waited in an attitude expressive of greedy curiosity. "Which of 'em is it?" demanded that functionary. "Shan't tell you," Cuckoo hissed at her. The filthy groove in which the landlady's mind forever ran began to rouse her to an intense animosity. "Well, it's all one to me so long as I'm paid regular," muttered Mrs. Brigg, with a swing of her dusty skirts and a toss of her grey head, governed by pomade, since it was a Saturday. Mrs. Brigg must once have held Christian principles, as she always prepared the ground for certain Sabbath curls the day before. Cuckoo ran to dress herself. It was seldom indeed that she stirred out in the morning, so seldom that that alone was an experience. Arrived in the bedroom, she pounced mechanically on rouge and powder, and was about to decorate herself when she suddenly paused with outstretched hands. She was going out into the bright wintry sunlight, and she was going to the doctor's house, full, perhaps, of those smart patients of whom Valentine had once spoken to her. What sort of an apparition would she be among them? She dropped her hands, hesitating. Then she turned to a cupboard, drew out the one famous black gown, and put it on. She crowned her head with Julian's hat, hid her hands in black silk gloves, pulled down her veil and seized an umbrella. Somehow Cuckoo vaguely connected respectability with umbrellas, although even the most vicious are fain to carry them in showery London. Then she looked at herself in the glass and wondered if her appearance were deceptive enough to trick the sharp eyes of the patients. The glance reassured her. She seemed to herself an epitome of black propriety, and she set forth with a more easy heart. As she walked, her mind ran on before, seeking what this summons meant and debating possibilities without arriving at conclusions. At the end of Harley Street her walk, which had been rapid, achieved a _ritardando_ and nearly came to a full close before she gained the doctor's door. Cuckoo could be a brazen hussy. A year ago she could scarcely be anything else. But that love of hers for Julian had, it