And he walked quickly across the floor and the next moment the door closed upon him. "I don't care what he says. I won't be ordered about," flashed out Bella, all that was worst in her nature roused by Jack's resolution. "Saidie is quite right; if I don't put my foot down I shall soon be nothing better than a white slave." "Putting her foot down," certainly had one effect, namely, that of making life anything but a bed of roses for the unfortunate doctor. Never had Bella shown herself so unamiable and unloveable as during the next two days. She hardly addressed her husband and she flounced about the room and tossed her head and hummed music-hall ditties (which she had caught from Saidie) under her breath, and altogether comported herself in the most exasperating fashion. John Chetwynd hardly knew how to act towards her. If he pretended to be unconscious of anything unusual, it would probably provoke her to stronger measures, and yet he was very loth to stir up strife between them, and leant towards the hope that this spirit of fractiousness would die out in time and that Bella would become her loving, tractable self again. But he reckoned without his host. Saidie, who was duly apprised of the condition of things, urged upon her sister to stick to her guns and on no account to yield an inch, and although desperately miserable, Bella took her advice. Returning from seeing a patient a day or two later, Dr. Chetwynd ran into the arms of an old friend, a man he had not seen since his marriage. "Why, Meynell, old chap, where have you dropped from?" he exclaimed, grasping the outstretched hand. "Where have _you_ hidden yourself? is more to the purpose. No one ever sees you nowadays." Dr. Chetwynd smiled. "Perhaps you do not know I am a married man," he said. "Which accounts for a good deal of my time, and as a matter of fact I have but little leisure, for my practice keeps me always at the grindstone." "Doing pretty well?" "Yes, I think I may say I am. Uphill work, of course, but still--" "And where are you living?" Chetwynd hesitated. "Close by here," he replied the next moment. "Come home with me now, if you have nothing better to do, and allow me to present my wife to you." And they walked on side by side. "You have dined? I am afraid--" "My dear fellow, I have this moment left the club." Dr. Chetwynd put his latch-key into the lock and ushered his friend upstairs to his wife's pretty drawing-room. But Bella was not there; and finding that she was not in her bedroom, or in fact in the house at all, he rang the bell and questioned the maid as to when her mistress had gone out and if she knew when she would be likely to return. "No, sir, that I'm sure I don't. My mistress never said anything to me." "Well, she is not likely to be away long," remarked the doctor philosophically. "Have a cigar, Meynell." "Thanks, no. Your wife spoils you, Jack, if she allows you to smoke in her pretty little room."