“There was another reason,” said the doctor slowly. Muriel was silent. “Do you want to hear it?” “If——” she began icily. “Yes, I may as well hear it,” she finished in confusion. She did not want him to think she cared enough to be angry. “I love you!” he said with the same quiet deliberation and a pause between each word, “and it was a little difficult to let you help in any other way.” The room grew suddenly tense; each breath was a terrible sword which shook the universe; there seemed an awful conspiracy in the room to win some concession; the very chairs and table seemed to wait and listen. A hand-organ in the street clanged them back into facts again. The doctor, still looking at her, picked up a paper-knife; Muriel sank back into the chair. There seemed nothing left in the world to say, but she felt as if there might be if he would only keep still a moment. “I am very sorry,” she said at last, and then she could have bitten her tongue out, it sounded so commonplace. She noticed that he was looking suddenly very tired, but he smiled with grave eyes. “I knew you would be,” he said, “and I must go and make some calls. But you do understand now, don’t you?” “I suppose I do,” said Muriel; “but are you going away?” He almost laughed at her thoughtlessness. “Well! yes, Miss Dallerton,” he said; “I think I must go now.” Muriel rose to her feet, and a great wave of desolation swept over her. She stood there alone, and before her eyes passed the vision of those who had left her—Alec—Jack—Cynthia—her uncle. All with their different lives, their different circles. And now he was going, the friend who had made life and her work, her youth and her beauty so excellently well worth while—with whom she had argued, quarrelled and discussed—and he was leaving her. All of a sudden she knew she could not bear it—that she, too, needed help and comfort and sympathy—that though one may give all and prosper, yet it is blessed to receive as well. And then he looked so tired. He was waiting for her to dismiss him, and he could not understand why she was keeping him. “I don’t want you to go,” said Muriel at last. “I’m sure I need you more—more than the other patients, only you must learn to ask questions and not to make assertions only if you want me to be a satisfactory case!” “What made you say that you were sorry?” he asked her after a long, wonderful pause. “I was sorry,” she laughed at him, “that you didn’t tell me so before!” * * * * * When Jack heard of her marriage he shrugged his shoulders. “I always thought she would run _amôk_ on some sort of a professional chap, but I rather thought it would be a parson,” he said, and thought how much better she might have done for herself if she had only known when she had a good thing. “I thought she was cut out for an old maid,” Edith le Mentier told her friends; “but those sort of women generally marry and have fourteen children.”